hhaa ok i got it. i was thinking american football and a pass is a pitch or something. ive never referred to is as a "pitch" but i played soccer for around 6 years and always called it a "field" ty
Well if it's that big across on one side, imagine what kind of momentum this thing could have - don't forget you're dealing with stellar speeds of like 10 miles per second for an asteroid; considering a basket-ball sized asteroid is supposed to be able to wipe out a whole "city block", or around 3000 square meters, imagine one that's like 1000 times bigger.
I always think that to! From a science point of view though consider it like this the kinetic energy of any body is given by 0.5mv^2 lets assume the and average rock density in 2.7 grams per cm^3 and the area of a football pitch is 120m*90m and to give it a volume we'll say 70m nah lets say 50? so thats 120m*90m*50m = 540,000m^3 times that by 3 because its 3 football pitches big = 1,620,000m^3 which is the same as 1,620,000,000cm^3 multiplied by the density gives 4,374,000,000 grams or 4.4 million Kg (rounding up) The average speed of an asteriod in orbit is about 20km/s (that suprised me) so thats 20,000 ms^-1 so that gives 0.5*4400000*20000^2= 8.8*10^14J thats 880 Trillian Joules! Thats gonna do some damage!!!
Well worked out, you can't argue with the math, but when u consider that the one that supposedly helped the dinosuars on their way out has been estimated at around 10km wide, 3 football pitches....
it's not just the impact in itself that wipe the planet. the debris from an asteroid of such a large since could potentially fill the skies with ash and dust for many years. so not only would the area around the impact would be effected, but the entire planet.
Ther is another one (1950ad designation) that will come real close in 400 years according to Discover Channel here in the 'States. They are looking now since the Hollywood movies made everyone aware of the problem, so they will be finding more. Kind of like in traffic, a miss is as good as a mile. I just hope we figure something out before we find one that will collide.
Surely something coming that close to earth at that speed would cause it to slingshot around most of the earth? I mean theres still gravity up there (hence the satellites that are apparently further out stay up there!) Tbh, its probably going to go a billion miles past us, but one researcher has managed to calculate it as this number, so the media have grabbed the number thats nearest to earth :| - M@
Remember the film Armegeddon. We blow up the astroid in the right place in space, and the debries will blast away from Earth. Is that realistic? Or just Hollywood fantasty?
My vote goes to hollywood fantasy. I'd imagine it's pretty much impossible to blow something up of that size and expect it to split into 2 perfectly even parts and seperate with enough deviation to avoid the earth. Let's hope NASA has a btter plan up their sleeve...
Possible, but improbable. To be honest I think the cost factor would be the thing that makes that scenario improbable. The technology for simulating the deviation of an asteroid when subjected to an A-bomb or H-bomb or any sort of blast I suppose, exists. Hell with today's technology we can simulate a variety of things. I mean whats to stop NASA loading some sort of spacecraft with 50 60-megaton warheads and launching it at a rock? Cost!
Not sure we are gonna worry too much about cost if it saved the planet though? Are we gonna see a blow up the asteroid tax?
I don't think we would nuke it to be honest- remember the response when someone suggested nuclear fuel for spacecraft? It is highly unlikely such a craft would be allowed to lift off.....imagine if Challenger no.2 happened with nuclear weapons on board?
they wouldn't go off if the rockets exploded only if they were armed. at worst you'd have a small dirty bomb.
Ahh right okay then, my bad- I assumed you would have the same problem as the nuclear reactor when that was talked about as fuel.
definately cost isn't a factor if there isn't any way to spend your money afterwards... and...umm... "Asteroid to miss Earth" I'm sure if we find otherwise we can figure something out in 24 years or whatever.
Oh no ... just think of the the charity events afterwards, should it hit! Pray it misses us! ...{sorry just cynical injection from someone who's had an overdose of charity collections at work! } Seriously though its not the impact that people should be worried about if it hits land; the debris thrown into the atmosphere would probably require a rethink on the impact of global warming.
Gravity allows for the 'slingshot' if the object is moving fast enough, otherwise it sucks the object right into us. Weren't you paying attention in your physics/ science classes, or aren't they mandatory any more? I do agree on your opinion on the media, they are some doom and gloom grubbers. I would rather plan on their doom scenario then try and ignore it tho'. If it IS real, then we have the ability to deal with it.
The velocity vector on that material would also be headed AWAY from us too. A Large dirty bomb would be more accurate unless you are chosing to understate yourself. All of our nukes, those 'nuclear club' countries included, do not have enough BANG!!to get the job done.
dirty bomb's are something made up to scare people. if you ask any real scientist they will tell you that in the explosion the radioactive material is scattered to much to have any real affect. as long as you dont stay in the area for long periods of time the only problem comes in where there are large amounts of radioactive materails end up in the atomospher such as the amount used in power stations.
Impact Probability: 1.5e-04 0.015000000% chance of Earth impact or 1 in 6,670 chance or 99.98500000% chance the asteroid will miss the Earth
