Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: JBX-Phoenix on July 24, 2002, 05:40:35 pm
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Well it seems another asteroid "might" hit Earth. They say the threat should go away with more study. Anyway heres the full story (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=624&ncid=624&e=2&u=/ap/20020724/ap_on_sc/britain_asteroid_threat_2)
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Meh, in 17 years I'll be 38, old enough to die a happy man.
Bring it on
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Good. The Plan is working perfectly...
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Originally posted by Stryke 9
Good. The Plan is working perfectly...
This is the Plan™?!?!
OMG We're doomed!!!!!
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Well, YOU are. My flying robot armies, with me at the front, will be ready to head for Mars just in time...
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and here's my counter plan(being serious,) try to knock it off corse with the best nuke you got when it gets close enough
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I saw this on TV tonight, there is only a very very slight chance it will hit earth.
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Originally posted by Dr.Zer0
and here's my counter plan(being serious,) try to knock it off corse with the best nuke you got when it gets close enough
It would either not work or it will probably break apart and the earth will be hit with many chunks of rocks. I doubt it would knock it off track.
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psh, we're all bond to die sometime... what better way to go out? :) So many asteroids have came "so close" to hitting earth.. i'm not really worried, besides all it really means is another movie. Maybe this time they will make a sequel and to that one (Deep Impact) It would be nice to see morgan freeman play stronger part.
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Originally posted by JBX-Phoenix
Well it seems another asteroid "might" hit Earth. They say the threat should go away with more study. Anyway heres the full story (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=624&ncid=624&e=2&u=/ap/20020724/ap_on_sc/britain_asteroid_threat_2)
So, if we study it enough will it vanish? Evaporate? "Go away" is an odd term... ;)
Also, correct me if I'm wrong - but surely blowing an asteroid into bits that then shower down on the Earth is only marginally less serious than the whole thing smacking us. Surely all the heavy elements will be distributed through the atmosphere and cause an Asteroid Winter. :p
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Personally, I don't care wot the odds are of it hitting or not - the possibility is still there! So I advocate work begins on a project to shoot it out of the stars if the need arises (total destruction, no mini-shower afterwards: I like my roof and skull intact).
Better to err on the side of caution, rather than face extinction!
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Originally posted by vyper
This is the Plan™?!?!
OMG We're doomed!!!!!
Don't listen to him, I am the only reliable source of information about The Plan™. :D
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Originally posted by TheVirtu
It would either not work or it will probably break apart and the earth will be hit with many chunks of rocks. I doubt it would knock it off track.
what else do you have to lose then, its like dodging a bullet, its worth a try, who knows, you might be a Matrix agent :D
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The idea of using nukes would not be to blow it to bits. That would result in a huge mass of smaller chunks moving along the same orbit ready to lay the smack onto a wide area of Earth, with the same fireballs and explosions and dead bodies and all that sort of funky stuff.
The way to use these nukes would be to detonate them nearby. The resulting shockwave would nudge the asteroid into a slightly different orbit - even if it's altered by a few degrees, given the distances involved altering the course a few years from impact would result in this big rock missing us completely. Or they'll put into action plans involving mining and inserting big flare-like things, or using neutron bombs or gynormous lasers to vapourise the surface rock to create a big blast that moves the asteroid etc.
Again I wonder just how long people will pay serious attention to this. Especially with the scientists now saying there's a "slim" chance, as if to not frighten the public into running amok. All that will result in is governments saying they don't have to do anything for the next few decades because it's only a "slim" chance.
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just nitpicking, but neutron bombs would do nothing since they don't damage structures.
back on topic, we have no mean to modify the trajectory of the asteroid a few years before it hits. So it's just "wait and see". I'm it'll miss, anyway: I'm not to see anything exciting in my entire life I bet.
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Correct me if I'm wrong again, but don't nukes not go off to suchan extent outside an atmosphere, since they have less material to "work with"?
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We'd better start making some superheroes! The government should take action, and begin incubating babies in nuclear reactors. It works in the comics!
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Bah. I have full confidence that in 17 years, under almost 2 decades of pressure, someone will make a nice, simple warp-drive and kamikaze the prototype into the asteroid at 200 times the speed of light thus incinerating it.
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Originally posted by Shrike
We'd better start making some superheroes! The government should take action, and begin incubating babies in nuclear reactors. It works in the comics!
Comics are a 20th-Century Bible. :D
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Originally posted by Kellan
Comics are a 20th-Century Bible. :D
You know what's sad? That's true
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The way to use these nukes would be to detonate them nearby. The resulting shockwave would nudge the asteroid into a slightly different orbit - even if it's altered by a few degrees, given the distances involved altering the course a few years from impact would result in this big rock missing us completely [/B]
1. Space=Vacuum=No shockwaves
2. How were you planning to shoot those nukes there? We would have to develop a whole new type of missile. Though it might be possible to simply use normal rockets(the things that carry space shuttles) loaded with nukes.
3. Fact 1: the rock is 2 kilometers in diameter Fact 2: the rock travels at a speed of roughly 28 km/s. Do you have any idea what kind of movement energies we are talking here? A few nukes wouldn't do _anything_ to it.
So basically all we can do is hope that it misses, there's nothing we can do to stop it, even in 17 years.
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Actually there is, but I'm too lazy to go search for specifics, basically you veer it off course, slowly over time it would be enough to miss us.
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Originally posted by Blue Lion
Actually there is, but I'm too lazy to go search for specifics, basically you veer it off course, slowly over time it would be enough to miss us.
No specifics needed, I'd just like to know what were you planning to use for it :)
Of course, we have to notice it pretty much in advance, like this one.
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on the info here they mentionned two "probes"... don't ask :doubt:
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Originally posted by Pera
1. Space=Vacuum=No shockwaves
2. How were you planning to shoot those nukes there? We would have to develop a whole new type of missile. Though it might be possible to simply use normal rockets(the things that carry space shuttles) loaded with nukes.
3. Fact 1: the rock is 2 kilometers in diameter Fact 2: the rock travels at a speed of roughly 28 km/s. Do you have any idea what kind of movement energies we are talking here? A few nukes wouldn't do _anything_ to it.
So basically all we can do is hope that it misses, there's nothing we can do to stop it, even in 17 years.
Too tired to put down your claims now, I'll deal with you later. Except to say not to think in terrestrial terms.
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Originally posted by Pera
1. Space=Vacuum=No shockwaves
2. How were you planning to shoot those nukes there? We would have to develop a whole new type of missile. Though it might be possible to simply use normal rockets(the things that carry space shuttles) loaded with nukes.
3. Fact 1: the rock is 2 kilometers in diameter Fact 2: the rock travels at a speed of roughly 28 km/s. Do you have any idea what kind of movement energies we are talking here? A few nukes wouldn't do _anything_ to it.
So basically all we can do is hope that it misses, there's nothing we can do to stop it, even in 17 years.
1).Nuke=mass » Shockwave = mass = collision = course change (hopefully)
2). See 1).
3) Fact 1 : True
Fact 2 : Depends on too many variables. (gravity on the asteroid, angle of impact, etc)
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Im not sure you realize that a Nuke is based off of the spliting atoms, mass is negligable, however, the force of the explosion, given that enough hit early enough, may deter the asteriod. However, being able to hit it is very very difficult, and even with today's technology, calculating its exact course close enough to even be able to impact it is litterally impossible until it enters the solar system.
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Originally posted by Kellan
Also, correct me if I'm wrong - but surely blowing an asteroid into bits that then shower down on the Earth is only marginally less serious than the whole thing smacking us. Surely all the heavy elements will be distributed through the atmosphere and cause an Asteroid Winter. :p
Nope, lots of little ones are better as they're more likely to burn up in the atmosphere, plus even fifty little ones wouldn't do nearly as much atmospheric damage as the big one would. Plus one nuke detonated that far up probably woudn't increase the amount of radiation in any one place by more than a neglible amount.
The real danger is that you blow it up in just the wrong way and little bits start to orbit. This would be extremely badnews as satellites would be hit, sending more little bits and pieces into orbit, which would hit more satellites, more bits ad infinitum., with the ultimate result being that we will soon have so much crap moving around that no sattelites would be able to orbit, and we probably wouldn't even be able to get a shuttle, or any other type of space vehicle off the planet.
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Originally posted by Tiara
3) Fact 1 : True
Fact 2 : Depends on too many variables. (gravity on the asteroid, angle of impact, etc)
I was talking about this particular asteroid, I read the speed from a newspaper.
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Originally posted by Pera
I was talking about this particular asteroid, I read the speed from a newspaper.
Still the gravity can be different then you think, angle of impact (nuke > asteroid) can change due to gravity.
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What I'm worried about is the ones we don't know about! If people will be monitoring one that'll MAYBE hit in 17 years, why not try and look for new ones that could hit maybe next week?
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What im saying is that we will have a hell of a time trying to hit it with anything until it gets within pluto, and even then chances of hitting it are still around nill. You have to take into consideration the effects of gravity from countless of stars (even if the amount seems negligible), planets, other satelite objects such as asteriods in our own asteriod belt, solar winds, its own center of gravity, and a bunch of other stuff as well I'm sure.
As for little bits, you'd have to pretty much incinerate the rock in order to get peices small enough not to be a problem. A thing the size of a basketball can do plenty of damage; however, this is still better than having a chunk of rock a mile or two in diameter crash into the earth, resulting in a nuclear winter.
As far as blowing it up wrong so that parts go into orbit; orbits decay, and without thrusters to realign every once in a while, these smaller things will eventually hit the atmosphere and burn almost immediately given their angle. That or they'll bounce and skip off into the sky and we never see it again.
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Its years away, by that time we can shoot with a big ass laser, if we're lucky we could nudge it into a high orbit and mine it. :D.
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Well, if they can get a few shuttles up there, attach some big retro rockets to it, they just might be able to put it into geo-stationary orbit, strip mine it, and then launch it off towards venus when they finish.
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Originally posted by Dark_4ce
What I'm worried about is the ones we don't know about! If people will be monitoring one that'll MAYBE hit in 17 years, why not try and look for new ones that could hit maybe next week?
What do you want it to do? Invent subspace drives?
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To the disdain of many, I'm back :)
While the remnants of a nuclear explosion might not have much mass in itself, that's not the whole story. If you remember back to high school physics, you'll remember the equation f=ma. A nuclear explosion emits lots of particles, and while they may not weigh much initially, they are travelling extremely fast. In the vicinity of 100,000 times faster than that asteroid.
High intensity particles aren't the only constituent of a nuke, nor are they even the main constituent. The energy released in the form of photons, although not weighing much, still possesses momentum. If this were another time, I'd probably calculate the energy contained in both the rock and nukes and see what would be needed - I'm sure someone else in here is knowledgeable enough to do so (and check that this post makes sense in the first place...).
Unfortunately, using regular nukes won't have much of an effect. When a bomb explodes, its power is radiated in all directions, meaning its overall effectiveness is cut down to a fraction of what it really is. Also, certain types of asteroid can soak up such a blast, distributing it throughout its structure in a way that makes the initial blast pointless.
In this case, you'd want to use hundreds, if not thousands of warheads, to deflect it. And in that case, some hot-headed people would probably just say "blow the ***** up!" and hope that it's blown to bits small enough that they burn up in Earth's atmosphere (I guess you could meet halfway, blow up the rock into small chunks, then deflect those with the rest of the nukes). Beforehand, you'd probably want to listen to all the scientists and geeks and asylum inmates to see what whacky ideas they have. Most ideas involve either attaching something to it and towing/blowing it away, or blowing up a small part of it to make the rest shift direction. Either way, only a small change is needed
In any case, it's not as simple an issue as I may have implied in my first post.
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Originally posted by Kazashi
To the disdain of many, I'm back
Yes, you were right about many things there, though the thing about photons left me wondering, I thought photons don't have mass at all? I mean, if photons can travel at the speed of light, they obvioysly can't have any mass. Or has the summer holiday made me forget everything about physics?
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I might be wrong here, but I think they have an extremely low (probably zero) rest mass but they gain mass at higher speeds.
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Better idea: Fire mass concentrations of anti-matter at the rock. If you release it in space it won't blow until it touches the asteroid. It won't just incinerate the asteroid. It converts it to pure energy. The atmosphere will absorb the radiation.
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See, the problem here is that you're all thinking in the wrong way.
What we have to do is nuke one side of the Earth to throw it off-orbit, wait for the asteroid to pass, then nuke the other side to get it back on.
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Originally posted by Levyathan
See, the problem here is that you're all thinking in the wrong way.
What we have to do is nuke one side of the Earth to throw it off-orbit, wait for the asteroid to pass, then nuke the other side to get it back on.
:wtf:
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It would work!
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Originally posted by Pera
Yes, you were right about many things there, though the thing about photons left me wondering, I thought photons don't have mass at all? I mean, if photons can travel at the speed of light, they obvioysly can't have any mass. Or has the summer holiday made me forget everything about physics?
Photon's can exert their momentum onto another object (such is the principle of a solar sail), however they don't actually have to have mass to do that. In "classical" modern physics, photons have a zero rest mass, and since they have a rest mass of zero, plugging the value of 0 into the Lorentz equation to determine its mass at reletavistic speeds will give you an answer of 0. Otherwise, anything that has any mass will result in a mass of infinity upon reaching c.
Over the years there have been a few sensitive cosmological theories that would require photons to weigh something, even if it's only on the order of 0.000000000000000000000000000000000001g. Also, according to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, gravitational fields can bend photons - while some may say that it's a matter of the interaction of the forces in some other manner, one of the fundamental principles of gravity is that gravitons interact with mass. At least, that's what I learned over the past 11 years. I've presented my own hypothesis on this in places such as the old VBB (and other places that seem to have died soon afterwards....), but I'll spare everyone this time around :)