How To Avoid an Armageddon Asteroid Scenario

[fulano]

One of those rocks, probably the size of a volkswagen or something, will one day hit a populated area and only then will people start paying attention and taking this kind of stuff seriously.

 

[thepyrethatburns]

I think people in this thread (assuming their responses are serious) are:
A) Overestimating the threat this poses, given that the 10% figure from NASA is a very general one and that the figure on objects capable of significant surface effects within a dangerously short period is likely MUCH closer to 100%

One of the problems with our current detection methods (other than funding) is that they can't see an asteroid that is headed directly toward us. Our methods of detection are more suited for asteroids that are running at a semi-parallel path to us. If it is aimed directly at us, it just appears as a pinprick in the sky until it's right on top of us. In fact, we've already had a few near misses that we didn't detect until they were close enough that, had they been aimed at us, it would have been too late to do anything. This is why the Torino scale not only takes size of asteroid but certainty of impact and how close it is before it'll strike us.

B) Unaware that we are already aware of at least one large extraterrestrial object that will pass within dangerous orbit twice in the next 30 years and are formulating plans to deal with it.

Which asteroid are you talking about? We are aware of a number of them but, whether you use Torino or Palermo, supposedly none of them are more than a blip on either scale.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/#legend

The only situation along these lines that is even remotely worrying is one in which there is a presently-unknown object that is likely to collide with earth on its first pass through reasonably-observable space. The odds of this happening before its relevance to humanity's extinction is either greatly reduced or utterly trivialized are quite low, and scale lower as time goes by.

Ignoring the reply of "Would they even tell us if there were such a rock?", this goes back to the detection issue. We don't cover as much of the sky as people think and we've already been taken by surprise a few times since we started monitoring for such things. The size of such things is also an issue. If you look at the moon right now, chances are that you could make an O with your fingers and encircle the whole thing. Yes, we have telescopes that sweep the skies using more than just the visual spectrum and all that but an asteroid the size of the Chrysler building is still difficult to detect, even with computerized monitoring.

And remember, we have to be able to detect it in sufficient time. I liked Armageddon. It blew things up real good. However, if a rock is already within the moon's orbit, it's already too late. To give you an idea on the speeds and distance involved, the moon's orbit (being an ellipse) is 360,000km to 420,000km from the earth. This sounds like an unfathomable long distance until you look at the Earth's speed in rotating the sun. Our planet moves at an estimated 107,000km/hour. Given how fast the asteroid in the movie was closing in on earth, it seemed to be coming at us pretty close to a head-on angle. So, even if you negate the asteroid's speed, you're still looking at 3 to 4 hours from when Harry and crew landed on the asteroid.

Another fault with the movie was how they treated the explosion. They were detonating the asteroid from the inside. Somehow, the asteroid fragments all diverted off to the side.....from an internal explosion instead of hurling rock in all directions. Even an 1/8 of that scattered rock would have wiped a large chunk of humanity off the map.

But, working with the missile theory, we're going to be firing the missiles straight at the rock. (Even then, we're going to have a high miss ratio.) Unless we have the means to fire the missiles out at an angle and then have them change direction and still have enough missiles to zero in on the rock, we won't really be doing too much diverting so much as trying to slow it which, as was mentioned before, is made more difficult due to the effects of the outer space environment as opposed to detonating a nuke in an atmosphere. Essentially, we're trying to divert a rolling boulder by throwing pebbles at it. Not impossible but, given our current technology, is a scenario that would currently be very much dependent on luck.

 

[Altorin]

Everyone just needs to lean to the left.

That way, the earth will move out of the way.

 

[Altorin]

As cool as Bruce Willis in a Space Shuttle is, the idea of say hitting a rock the size of Manhatten with another rock the size of Manhatten to deflect it has been around longer, and always struck me as being infinatly more plausible.

that sounds to me something like hitting a billiard ball with a cueball

and we're the corner pocket

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

If an object the size of Texas were heading for Earth, you would need more nukes than what is curently available if you want to divert it.

If you want to drill and blow it up then what you will need depends on its weight and composition, either way you will have thousands of heavily irradiated chunks raining down on the planet.

 

[duchaked]

easy...well, sort of

we just need a lot of Jedi

(or a few very focused ones on specially built temples to amplify their usage of the Force...what? fine shutting up)

((but it worked against Star Destroyers!!))

 

[Nouw]

"Nuke 'em from orbit." Get it?

 

[jonnosferatu]

Lots of very informative text

Posting because I feel obligated to give props for an extremely informative response that I was not expecting in the slightest. Thanks!

 

[Rusty Bucket]

Everyone just needs to lean to the left.

That way, the earth will move out of the way.

This is genious. I feel safer already.