Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Vasudan Commander on August 12, 2007, 07:22:51 am
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This is no joke.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/02/asteroid.reut/index.html
**starts listening to "end of the world" by REM*
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In the words of my Natural Hazards lecturer:
"Head for the brothels!"
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(...)
Asteroid "2003 QQ47" will be closely monitored over the next two months. Its potential strike date is March 21, 2014, but astronomers say that any risk of impact is likely to decrease as further data is gathered. (...)
News is from September 2003. Astronomers have since had about 47 months to observe this particular asteroid, instead of the next two months that were mentioned in the news.
Seeing how we haven't really heard about it after the initial news, I'd say the risk of impact indeed decreased as further data was gathered.
That said, it'd be cool to have some hugish meteorite to hit some remote location of the world, enough to give a scare but not cause widespread destruction... Something like the Tunguska thingy. :)
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Fun fact: If the Tunguska object had arrived two minutes later, it would have exploded over downtown London. Nah, **** that. Failure of communication.
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Fun fact: If the Tunguska object had arrived two minutes later, it would have exploded over downtown London.
Very fun! Sweet!
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one in 909,000
Well, we ARE VERY unlucky if we were the one.
Now everytime I discuss on this topic, I get real pissed. Because if a couple of shots from a ML-16 or a Fury, the Asteroid is in two smaller pieces. WHY can't the humans do that now? We have the money and technology!
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Freespace asteroids are only about a hundred metres across. We can blow up stuff of that size no problems already, if we can hit it. The problem comes when we're in the sights of asteroids that aren't measured in metres, but in kilometres.
That said, it'd be cool to have some hugish meteorite to hit some remote location of the world, enough to give a scare but not cause widespread destruction... Something like the Tunguska thingy.
It would be cool - I'd definitely go see the crater afterwards :) But what I'd really like to see was a big one striking the moon, during the night, in a place that's visible from Earth. Now THAT would rock :D
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Freespace asteroids are only about a hundred metres across. We can blow up stuff of that size no problems already, if we can hit it. The problem comes when we're in the sights of asteroids that aren't measured in metres, but in kilometres.
WARNING!
The following paragraphs contain intense spamming, due to Nubbles going berserk about can't stopping a few kilometer wide asteroid. We feriously apologize for this reason.
hmmm...for a 2.5km wide asteroid I would say a few bombers to can take it down...BUT the problem is, that we DON'T have bombers! And two, we DON'T have space bombs!
Ohhh...I can just see the vasudans laughing their ass off saying: "Ha! You destroyed the Lucifer, BUT you are so weak that you CAN'T destroy an Asteroid!" omg...
What's next? Calling all Alpha 1s on Earth to save the human race again? Yea, that could work. A few sacrafices (I'll estimate at least 5000) could stop a freaking asteroid...
Is Terran command going to do something about this? OH NO! He is sitting with his fat ass inside the GTD Gallaway, a probably hanging out with Cindy! (AGAIN) He doesn't even bother to think: "Oh! Earth in 2014 is being destroyed!" Oh well you know what Command? Without Earth YOU and your freaking family wouldn't exist! SO beat that.
Sorry for spamming...I needed a stress reliever. But anyways, yes, it could be very scary. And if we blow the asteroid up, there would be million chunks of asteroids (instead of one) heading to Earth.
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Why the hell you are worried?
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One wonders. Sure, there's reason to be a little worried, as in "Hey, maybe we should spend more money on looking for near-earth asteroids, and maybe develop some plans for countering them". But it's a very low risk, far less than getting killed in traffic, so nothing to lose sleep over.
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Wouldn't quite agree on that.
Earth has been hit by bigger rocks trought history...FAR more often than most people relize...alltough not that much in the most recent history...which makes me wonder...when's the next big one due?
Humanitys ability to detect incoming asteroids is really poor :drevil:
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Not so much:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_QQ47
Changes are slim to nil. The same thing happened with a dozen asteroids. 2029 and 2032 are another set of doomsday years. Oh and 2012 apparently...but not for asteroids. End of the Mayan calendar and some sort of planetary alignment with the galactic plane and whatnot.
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Changes are slim to nil. The same thing happened with a dozen asteroids. 2029 and 2032 are another set of doomsday years. Oh and 2012 apparently...but not for asteroids. End of the Mayan calendar and some sort of planetary alignment with the galactic plane and whatnot.
I heard from Mayans that this change is not supposed to be a bad one. In simple terms, a new Era is going to start...full of changes and stuff like that.
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Not so much:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_QQ47
Changes are slim to nil. The same thing happened with a dozen asteroids. 2029 and 2032 are another set of doomsday years. Oh and 2012 apparently...but not for asteroids. End of the Mayan calendar and some sort of planetary alignment with the galactic plane and whatnot.
Darn it, now we are dumber than Mayans!
Humanitys ability to detect incoming asteroids is really poor :drevil:
Command: Pilots! The asteroids that are heading for Earth is indicated in a white bracket! And I think Carl is flying one of them...
Yes, Trashman. I agree. Theres still hundreds (perhaps thousands) that are targeting Earth, and those are the which we don't know about.
Why the hell you are worried?
Excuse me, as I clearly shown (perhaps) in my panic message, I would be totally ashamed if we get killed by an asteroid. I mean, we have the money to develop Earth protection systems, but we aren't doing it. It also means the human race is being destroyed by something that is tottally avoidable.
On impact, it could have the effect of 20 million Hiroshima atomic bombs
Well then the Lucifer beams surely must be 20 trillion...
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Your living on a speck of land on a planet in a speck of a solar system thats a speck in a galaxy which itself is a speck in the universe.
There are a trillion ways to be wiped out by the forces in motion around us and so far we've only got a few loose promise from a handful of governments to try and expand our survival options by moving beyond earth.
I don't think a rock crashing down, even on a major city, would change anyones minds over the long term.
It would only have a 9/11 effect. Everyones thought in year one, but forgotten by year 5.
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What are the chances it would hit a city anyway? Why not some random chunk of land out in the middle of nowhere? Or, more likely still, the ocean?
I'm not too worried. :o
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Your living on a speck of land on a planet in a speck of a solar system thats a speck in a galaxy which itself is a speck in the universe.
There are a trillion ways to be wiped out by the forces in motion around us and so far we've only got a few loose promise from a handful of governments to try and expand our survival options by moving beyond earth.
I don't think a rock crashing down, even on a major city, would change anyones minds over the long term.
It would only have a 9/11 effect. Everyones thought in year one, but forgotten by year 5.
I hope you did read my posts...
On impact, it could have the effect of 20 million Hiroshima atomic bombs
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Asteroid Impact Effect calculator: (http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects) Have some fun creatign your personal apocalypse and determining it's effects on you and the world around you!
Allow me to paste an example about the effects of a 1-km diameter heavy rock asteroid hitting Tampere (160 km, or about 100 miles distance) at relative velocity of 20 km/s:
Your Inputs:
Distance from Impact: 234.00 km = 145.31 miles
Projectile Diameter: 1000.00 m = 3280.00 ft = 0.62 miles
Projectile Density: 3000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 20.00 km/s = 12.42 miles/s
Impact Angle: 60 degrees
Target Density: 2750 kg/m3
Target Type: Crystalline Rock
Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: 3.14 x 1020 Joules = 7.50 x 10^4 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years is 6.2 x 105years
Atmospheric Entry:
The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 56600 meters = 186000 ft
The projectile reaches the ground in a broken condition. The mass of projectile strikes the surface at velocity 19.9 km/s = 12.4 miles/s
The impact energy is 3.11 x 1020 Joules = 7.43 x 104MegaTons.
The broken projectile fragments strike the ground in an ellipse of dimension 1.27 km by 1.1 km
Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.
Crater Dimensions:
Crater shape is normal in spite of atmospheric crushing; fragments are not significantly dispersed.
Transient Crater Diameter: 11.8 km = 7.3 miles
Transient Crater Depth: 4.16 km = 2.58 miles
Final Crater Diameter: 16.3 km = 10.1 miles
Final Crater Depth: 0.685 km = 0.426 miles
The crater formed is a complex crater.
The volume of the target melted or vaporized is 2.4 km3 = 0.575 miles3
Roughly half the melt remains in the crater , where its average thickness is 22.1 meters = 72.5 feet
Thermal Radiation:
Time for maximum radiation: 0.681 seconds after impact
Visible fireball radius: 9.25 km = 5.75 miles
The fireball appears 8.99 times larger than the sun
Thermal Exposure: 1.64 x 106 Joules/m2
Duration of Irradiation: 176 seconds
Radiant flux (relative to the sun): 9.29
Effects of Thermal Radiation:
Much of the body suffers second degree burns
Deciduous trees ignite
Seismic Effects:
The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 46.8 seconds.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 7.9
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 234 km:
VI. Felt by all, many frightened. Some heavy furniture moved; a few instances of fallen plaster. Damage slight.
VII. Damage negligible in buildings of good design and construction; slight to moderate in well-built ordinary structures; considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures; some chimneys broken.
Ejecta:
The ejecta will arrive approximately 223 seconds after the impact.
Average Ejecta Thickness: 1.33 cm = 0.523 inches
Mean Fragment Diameter: 1.1 cm = 0.432 inches
Air Blast:
The air blast will arrive at approximately 709 seconds.
Peak Overpressure: 22300 Pa = 0.223 bars = 3.17 psi
Max wind velocity: 48.2 m/s = 108 mph
Sound Intensity: 87 dB (Loud as heavy traffic)
Damage Description:
Glass windows will shatter.
About 30 percent of trees blown down; remainder have some branches and leaves blown off.
... :nervous:
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I hope you did read my posts...
On impact, it could have the effect of 20 million Hiroshima atomic bombs
Actually I was speaking about a bad strike in general, not a particular rock.
Right now we don' t have the ability to so much as float a deep space radar of any useful power. Solar panels can't generate the wattage and theres no safe way to launch a big enough reactor.
This also means making a large scale colony is not happening anytime soon, and despite all the good reasons to do so theres no one really working on that.
There are two possibilities from there if a rock were to fall tomorrow:
1) We get a nasty wakeup call.
2) We are obliterated.
As I said, the wakeup call will last for a few years till we get back to our old shenanigans. The earth getting totaled rules out the chance existing societies will ever inhabit space on a large scale, even if they survive.
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Why the hell you are worried?
Excuse me, as I clearly shown (perhaps) in my panic message, I would be totally ashamed if we get killed by an asteroid. I mean, we have the money to develop Earth protection systems, but we aren't doing it. It also means the human race is being destroyed by something that is tottally avoidable.
Our civilization is young as well as our species. Are you aware of the number of catastrophes that hit our planet? Much bigger asteroid hit Terra and caused mass extinctions. Even the explosion of Supernovae is an enormous threat...at least one mass extiction was caused by a Supernova exploded in a 200 light years range from here. But something survived and started a new era...
Back where it startedTM
:P
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Major Global Changes:
The Earth is strongly disturbed by the impact, but loses little mass.
100.00 percent of the Earth is melted
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.
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Major Global Changes:
The Earth is completely disrupted by the impact and its debris forms a new asteroid belt orbiting the sun between Venus and Mars.
Of course, I had to make it so that it was actually hit by an object of similar size on reverse orbit.
I don't know if that thing is relativistic, but nevertheless it's pretty interesting to experiment what a 500-metre diameter* space ship with the density of dense rock traveling at 0.1 c does to it's immediate surroundings... try it out and be amazed. There's a reason why the guys at :v: put a speed limit on the game...
*just estimating size equivalents of a few kilometres long, cool looking ship and a sphere... although it would be most cost-effective to build the space ship as a sphere to begin with.
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1200 km rock at 30m/s...DEVASTATING....9800m crater :eek2: :eek:
12000 km rock...no more Earth.
120 km rock - .....
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Dammit, its time like this i wish that guy Ronald Regan was still president of USA. He had the right idea : - scare the world about aliens and asteroids and we'll all put aside our differences.
We can theorize about doomsday, but the ultimate time will come down to when George W Bush looks at the little red button and his desk and says 'hey whats this thing do?'
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Dammit, its time like this i wish that guy Ronald Regan was still president of USA. He had the right idea : - scare the world about aliens and asteroids and we'll all put aside our differences.
Yes, while still managing to bring the Doomsday Clock to the closest it's been to midnight in the past 50 years. :doubt:
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Hmph. If you asked me (though I know you wouldn't), I'd say bring 'em on. Big asteroids or equivalent hitting Earth and causing a near extinction or at least a big decrease in population size of the dominating species are one of nature's ways of saying that there are too many people on the planet. Kind of like diseases but more effective.
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Dang..I jsut wanted to link a great Brewster Rockit comic (concering the Doomsday Clock), but now I can't find it... :(
this will have to do then:
http://www.comicspage.com/brewster/brewster.html
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Ejecta:
What does this mean?
Your position was inside the transient crater and ejected upon impact
Teehee.
Projectile Diameter: 20000000.00 m = 65600000.00 ft = 12420.00 miles
Projectile Density: 1500 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 20.00 km/s = 12.42 miles/s
Impact Angle: 38 degrees
Target Density: 2750 kg/m3
Target Type: Crystalline Rock
Major Global Changes:
The Earth is strongly disturbed by the impact, but loses little mass.
100.00 percent of the Earth is melted :eek2:
The impact makes a significant change in the Earth's rotation period and tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.
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Why the hell you are worried?
Excuse me, as I clearly shown (perhaps) in my panic message, I would be totally ashamed if we get killed by an asteroid. I mean, we have the money to develop Earth protection systems, but we aren't doing it. It also means the human race is being destroyed by something that is tottally avoidable.
Our civilization is young as well as our species. Are you aware of the number of catastrophes that hit our planet? Much bigger asteroid hit Terra and caused mass extinctions. Even the explosion of Supernovae is an enormous threat...at least one mass extiction was caused by a Supernova exploded in a 200 light years range from here. But something survived and started a new era...
Back where it startedTM
:P
Errmm...supernova caused extinctions? When did that happen? I've never heard of it.
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Wouldn't a supernova destroy everything in a star system? :nervous:
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Gamma ray bursts from nearby novae can cause mass extinctions. The one during the pre-Cambrian fits the bill. Same with another in the Triassic, IIRC.
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BloodEagle....yes obviously a supernova would generally destroy everything in the start system where the star went nova. But our sun isn't likely to go nova...ever...its more likely to grow to a gigantic size, swallow the Earth, and then shrink into a tiny little ball.
I've just never heard of there being actual documented instances where a supernova caused an extinction event on Earth. I'll look those up Ace...interesting!
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The Gamma Ray burst from the supernova travels a long time... and there is no warning. These happen all the time, they just haven't pointed at our planet... and prolly won't, as the chances are so low... and there's nothing we could do, anyways, so why worry?
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It's a function of distance... we're pretty far away from stars that're gonna supernova... none of the stars within 10 lightyears are canidates (IDT) we might get a little higher radiation from time to time, but not mass extinction inducing levels.
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Arr, hrm, I watched a Discovery channel episode to the contrary...
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Be careful with mixing up supernova and nova with each other.
Nova occurs in a dual star systems with a white dwarf component and a main sequence star orbiting each other close enough for the white dwarf to pull hydrogen onto it's surface from the other star and to form an accretion disk. Occasionally enough hydrogen descends to the surface of the white dwarf to start a nuclear explosion... which is seen as nova. Nova doesn't destroy the star system.
A supernova, however, obliterates the star for the most part, including pretty much everything in the system, and leaves either a particularly dense white dwarf, neutron star or black hole formed from the core of the exploding star. Supernovae themselves are various in types and sizes.
What will happen to sun is that it'll expand to a red giant and finally poof it's outer components to space to form a planetary cloud. The core will remain as slowly cooling white dwarf after that. This event will not be very violent in itself, but at that point most of the inner planets' current orbits are already inside the Sun's radius.
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So, how much damage would an object 4 inches in diameter traveling at 95% the speed of light do if it were to impact Mt. Markham in Antarctica?
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It seems nature is to late, a species now has the ability to prevent asteroid impact, and prevent their own extinsion..
If you are able to break down a big asteroid into smaller rocks... they will all burn in the athmosphere.. and how we are going to do that? simple, isn't it?
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No, not that simple....and that's assuming you detect that asteroid on time in the first place... we're only monitoring about 4% of the universe ATM. So yeah, a big friggin chunk could come smacking down on as at this very instant.
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So, how much damage would an object 4 inches in diameter traveling at 95% the speed of light do if it were to impact Mt. Markham in Antarctica?
Your Inputs:
Distance from Impact: 10000.00 km = 6210.00 miles
Projectile Diameter: 1.00 m = 3.28 ft = 0.00 miles
Projectile Density: 8000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 299000.00 km/s = 185679.00 miles/s (Your chosen velocity is higher than the maximum for an object orbiting the sun)
Impact Angle: 90 degrees
Target Density: 2750 kg/m3
Target Type: Crystalline Rock
Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: -NaN x 10-NaN Joules = 4.47 x 104 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years is 4.2 x 105years
Atmospheric Entry:
The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 171000 meters = 560000 ft
The projectile bursts into a cloud of fragments at an altitude of 57500 meters = 189000 ft
The residual velocity of the projectile fragments after the burst is 291000 km/s = 181000 miles/s
The energy of the airburst is 1.03 x 1019 Joules = 2.45 x 103 MegaTons.
Large fragments strike the surface and may create a crater strewn field. A more careful treatment of
atmospheric entry is required to accurately estimate the size-frequency distribution of meteoroid fragments
and predict the number and size of craters formed. however it is most likely that there will be 15 impact sites,
each one spontaneously forming an AT energy based being of unimaginable power that can only be
defeated by a 1000 foot tall cyborg based upon these creature's physiology piloted by a young boy
overcoming his social awkwardness and crushing psychological barriers and fueled by his mother's
damned soul.
Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.
There is an 93% chance of the worldwide ocean level raising more than 40 feet due to southern icecap melting.
there is a 74% chance of it raising an additional three feet due to the entire human race getting desolved into an orange goo.
Air Blast:
What does this mean?
The air blast will arrive at approximately 30300 seconds.
Peak Overpressure: 144 Pa = 0.00144 bars = 0.0205 psi
Max wind velocity: 0.34 m/s = 0.76 mph
Sound Intensity: 43 dB (Easily Heard)
seems pretty accurate :nod:
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Sharp as a tack. :D
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If you are able to break down a big asteroid into smaller rocks... they will all burn in the athmosphere.. and how we are going to do that? simple, isn't it?
Not really that simple actually. From what I've heard you can't do that with a single nuke or even a bunch of them for the really bug asteroids. And even if you do manage to break the asteroid up in smaller chunks that may actually cause more damage than one big asteroid by achieving a cluster bomb effect.
The solution that I've heard of from most scientists is to deflect the asteroid rather than destroying it. Remember that even if you do manage to reduce the asteroid to pebble sized chunks you still haven't done much about it's overall kinetic energy and dumping that kind of energy into the atmosphere will probably have serious knock on effects even if nothing reaches the surface.
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You break it up into small enough fragments and most of that kinetic energy will be absorbed by the outer atmosphere which has precious little direct interaction with the lower atmosphere and surface anyway. However, I suspect it is largely a moot point. How exactly is one supposed to insure uniform breakup of what is essentially a flying mountain? Whatever your breakup mechanism, it will almost certainly create a distribution of new particle sizes. Some will be small enough for the atmosphere to handle, but you'll still end up with quite a few monsters. And I still don't see how exactly is one going to achieve any significant breakup in the first place? Deflection is almost certainly a better bet.
... I wonder what could be accomplished with a very large (several kilometers wide) diffraction lens used to focus some serious sunlight on the subject? In Earth orbit, sunlight has about 1366 W/m2. Take one square kilometer of that and focus it on an area 1 meter wide... 1.366 gigawatts over a square meter. yEAH! I had been thinking of using sharp thermal gradients to cause fracture, but with that much heat the resultant outgasing might have a significant effect on its trajectory.
Now that is starting to sound like fun. What would it take to build something like that?
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Actually you're not talking about something too dissimilar to an actual proposed solution to the problem. :)
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Burn the sucker out of the sky!
EAT PHOTONS INFIDEL! MAY THE HEAT OF A THOUSAND SUNS CONSUME YOU! :mad2:
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I've just never heard of there being actual documented instances where a supernova caused an extinction event on Earth. I'll look those up Ace...interesting!
That's because there isn't one. There's no evidence that a nearby supernova has ever caused a mass extinction of multicellular life on earth. It certainly could cause one, but so far, it probably hasn't.
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Hmm. One does tend to wonder just how an extinction event would be documented?
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[nut]by aliens[/nut]
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We should ask them to borrow a few of their records then.....and a few of their females too...as long as they are like in ST: TOS. ;7
If they are fugly then we can allways draw back to ye old Terminator rethoric:
In His Glorios name! Murder, Death, KILL!!!
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The earth wasn't badly displaced or its rotation effected, but it had a 10000km crater on it :confused:
Can someone explain this? (referring to asteroid collision program)
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It says on the website that the results aren't accurate, and there's no way I'm doing the math.
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I've just never heard of there being actual documented instances where a supernova caused an extinction event on Earth. I'll look those up Ace...interesting!
That's because there isn't one. There's no evidence that a nearby supernova has ever caused a mass extinction of multicellular life on earth. It certainly could cause one, but so far, it probably hasn't.
In the cases I'm referring to a gamma-ray burst has been considered a serious contender for the extinction event when looking at the types of species effected and those not effected. (i.e. deep sea species not effected)