We'd spend way too much effort into arguing whether or not it would strike.. then it would be too late. This dark asteroid is pretty terrifying though. What if there are massive asteroids out there with <2% reflective surface? Such an amazing universe.
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Remember that asteroid that flew by Earth? We were a little off on its size.
- Thread starter Escape Goat
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We'd spend way too much effort into arguing whether or not it would strike.. then it would be too late. This dark asteroid is pretty terrifying though. What if there are massive asteroids out there with <2% reflective surface? Such an amazing universe.
echoshifting
Banned
The other end of that scale, though, would be those who don't think there would be any point in trying to stop it or that it's hubris to suggest we even stand a chance. I choose to be guardedly optimistic about our chances. In most scenarios, anyway. I imagine we'd need more than three or four days!
phosphor112
Banned
We'll all be dead by nuclear fallout before that thing hits.
teruterubozu
Member
I wonder if we would have launched one of those missiles by now.
So what you're telling me is that I should trust him.
teruterubozu
Member
I guess it depends on your faith in me.
Keru_Shiri
Member
I want to bookmark this thread and link to it everytime someone asks what the "practical" applications of space exploration are.
Monocle
Member
Everyone knows asteroids are a myth invented whole cloth by wealthy liberal hippie elitists who want to waste our national security budget chasing clouds. "Space exploration," pah!
I dunno man....It would destroy all life on the planet and possibly create new seasons or something crazy. I live in Houston. I have driven to El Paso. Literally one part of the the state to the other. Texas is huge. An asteroid that size would do something fierce to the planet.
echoshifting
Banned
Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, it would completely exterminate all life and make the planet utterly inhospitable, ha ha ha. I'm just saying it wouldn't split the Earth in half. Let's not go crazy here.
DrAndonuts
Member
Seraphinianus
Banned
aren't asteroids those things that Neil DeGrasse Tyson invented? he's so cool to name drop on the internet right now.
it wouldn't literally split the planet in half...im just saying. i'm trying to comprehend the damage. How big was the one that killed off the dinos?
echoshifting
Banned
10 kilometers, but they were way more badass than we are
I mean when I say Mars "survived," I mean it is still there. That single event fucked the Martian crust - and consequently Mars - forever.
Well yeah, asteroids are basically orbiting the sun.
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
Perfect. Why did it always look like chocolate syrup?
Omegasquash
Member
Yep...let's worry more about gas prices and stopping gays from getting married. Seems the logical thing to do when you have a near miss with a potential ELE.
Honestly this is something not worth worrying about. is it more embarassing to die by killing ourselve or by an asteroid we have nothing to do with.
Focus on finding out ways to stop trying to destroy ourselves on purpose then we can worry about big rocks falling from the sky- aka things we can't do anything about until they are right up on us.
Focus on finding out ways to stop trying to destroy ourselves on purpose then we can worry about big rocks falling from the sky- aka things we can't do anything about until they are right up on us.
Keru_Shiri
Member
krypt0nian
Banned
Not that we could have done anything about it so it may as well have been 50 times larger.
Omegasquash
Member
Or we could stop thinking about stuff that won't kill us at all. And I don't care what's more embarrassing, I care about what can end life as we know it. Chances are it'll be humanity doing itself in, but wouldn't it blow to get moving in the right direction and have an asteroid fuck us right up the ass?
Nuclear war will happen before eh.
Asteroid Discovery from 1980-2011
White flashes are new discoveries, then they become color coded.
Red are "Earth Crossers", Yellow are "Earth Approachers", others are green.
Highly recommend changing to HD and full screen.
According to NASA there are over 4700 Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (that could hit Earth and cause major damage) and we've discovered maybe 30 percent of them.
Sweet dreams, everybody!!!
White flashes are new discoveries, then they become color coded.
Red are "Earth Crossers", Yellow are "Earth Approachers", others are green.
Highly recommend changing to HD and full screen.
According to NASA there are over 4700 Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (that could hit Earth and cause major damage) and we've discovered maybe 30 percent of them.
Sweet dreams, everybody!!!
I think humanity realizing that there's a lot more scary shit out there beyond <insert country and faction here> could probably help along with world peace. You know, focus our aggression on other things. Given that, we absolutely should be stressing asteroids and stray gamma rays of death.
/Ozymandias
It's kinda scary to think we're at the mercy of whatever the universe wants to throw at us.Hopefully, the really dangerous one that will hit Earth is very far away and by that time, we will have anti-asteroid nukes.
Its crazy to think that despite all our accomplishments as a species, we are still completely bound to this rock, and if any catastrophic event happens to it, we are fucked.
RumblingRosco
Member
We need a 300 km-sized asteroid to impact Earth in a relatively-important-and-populated-but-not-too-important-and-populated area to kill off a lot of us and cause a lot of damage. Maybe then people will say, "ok, shit, perhaps fighting each other isn't quite worthwhile and we should worry about natural shit."
But who am I kidding, almost assuredly the bigots and asshats will just point fingers and say, "See, your beliefs are wrong which is why the asteroid hit you and not us!"
But who am I kidding, almost assuredly the bigots and asshats will just point fingers and say, "See, your beliefs are wrong which is why the asteroid hit you and not us!"
how often they happen has no bearing on how long you have to plan for trying to deflect one - thats more to do with how much notice you get. In this case - 3 days.
When the next one hits is a crap shoot. Sure, maybe its only once in 100,000 years. But when was the last one? And its not like they hit a regular schedule - next one could be late, or could be early.
This event has shown us we need to start planning for this. Never mind telescopes in orbit looking for stuff, put probes further out into the solar system to detect gravity fluctuations or something.
270 meters wide, 510 megaton impact. Won't destroy the world as we know it, but probably kill millions.
Bring it on. We could use impending disaster scenarios like this to kickstart new space programs.
Actually, its either going to hit water or Russia. Europe, and NA are okay. Im okay with this.
Couldn't care less now.
If it hits water, be prepared for a ridiculous tsunami hitting either Asia or North America's west coast, or both..
Then hope it hits Russia?
Nah. We'd just get a second moon. That would be neat.
That's not really how probability works. Especially when dealing with so many unknown (infinite?) variables.
Lucky Forward
Member
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
... but you can do things about them before they're right upon us. The establishment of an organization for the detection and deflection of asteroids is certainly possible. There are even financial incentives involved with asteroid deflection, because the same technology you can use to deflect one can be used to steer (much smaller) asteroids to be captured by Earth and mined commercially for mass quantities of rare materials.
To give you a sense of scale here, the Indian Ocean Earthquake in 2004 released more than 9000 Gigatonnes of energy. While a 500MT equivalent asteroid will do substantial damage if it hits near something, striking in the middle of the pacific isn't going to cause mass devastation in a global sense.
My point is you can't stop it anyway. It's like worrying about dying of old age. Focus on what can end life as we know it that we cause or maybe even that we don't cause but is planet based.
That's true and certainly devote some resources to it. It should just be a small percentage of overall expenditures and should not be painted as a panic or fearful scenario. At this point we are doomed and will be for a century to come even if significant resources are spent and the likelihood of asteroid death is remote in comparison to greater likelihood of self-destruction.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Well I'm not sure how you've determined the likelyhood of self-destruction here. Nobody wants it to happen, and they've historically taken measures (and continue to take measures) to resolve disputes without resorting to nuclear force. The worst aspects of the Cold War are behind us, and I think we've learned our lessons from some of the close calls contained therein. From a purely technical standpoint, I don't think we've actually got the firepower to do the job anyway, and it is increasingly put into doubt as you consider future advances in directed energy weapons (or even just conventional missile defenses) combined with shrinking arsenals.
This is not to say I don't think it's something to worry about - vigilance is the best way to ensure that it doesn't.
We've got preliminary deflection strategies, but we really don't have that many ways of developing them outside of the actual situation. Part of the idea of monitoring for potential Earth-striking objects is to identify them early enough that a mission could actually work.
just wondering if any of these space rocks has had it's orbit accurately predicted ... i mean it's all very well to say ..yadda yadda ..next 700 years ... we didn't know about it till a few weeks ago?
great ... so what if another of these rocks we don't know about whizzes past this one some where deep off in the galaxy, effects it's path just enough to hit us smack in the face next time round?
how do we know that hasn't already happened to something else already?
we need a space program and big fuck off lasers stat ..
great ... so what if another of these rocks we don't know about whizzes past this one some where deep off in the galaxy, effects it's path just enough to hit us smack in the face next time round?
how do we know that hasn't already happened to something else already?
we need a space program and big fuck off lasers stat ..
Liquidsnake
Banned
Now you guys are just getting stupid. Cloaking technology is at least a century away for any alien race
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Objects outside of our solar system having an effect on objects inside it are going to be doing this uniformly - acting on everything inside, not just one asteroid. The problem is NOT predicting its course, which can be done with a high degree of accuracy once you know it's there. The problem is not knowing where all of the other asteroids are in our solar system.
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