"What will it take to defend the world from an asteroid?" Topic

"The dinosaurs saw a grisly death at the hands of an asteroid, but who's to say that Earth's modern-day inhabitants won't meet the same fate? Fortunately, scientists are already hard at work to prevent that future. How to Kill an Asteroid by science journalist Robin George Andrews is a deep dive into the extremely badass business of thwarting a destructive asteroid.

The book's title is a slight misnomer. As Andrews explains, the best strategy to save the planet from an impending asteroid is not to blow it up in space — though that's a reasonable last-ditch option — but instead to deflect it while it's still far beyond Earth's neighborhood. The physics of diversion is tricky: Which spacefaring rocks are harmless and which ones are a real threat? Will scientists be able to detect and intercept one in time? And if we manage to deflect it, will the rock fragment into a gazillion deadly bullets bound for Earth?…"

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Armand

Well, you don't waste to blow it up Real Goid. Jerry Bruckheimer movies to the contrary. 🤷

Superman?

The Moon does a great job covering this for us already.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory was built for this very purpose: to identify and track asteroids, comets, etc., that could pose a threat to Earth. In short, it takes images of the night sky, every night, comparing previous images, to locate moving objects (comets, asteroids, etc.); it sends out e-mail alerts for every object detected so that Astronomers can look into them. It is supposed to generate 100's of e-mail alerts every night -- YIKES!!!

Check it out on YouTube. It is impressive in what it shows, what it captures, and what it does. It is also ground based, unlike the James Webb Space Telescope that killed the Big Bang Theory (a time machine that looks back to the first 100 million years after the alleged Bing Bang explosion that didn't happen as they thought it had). We live in astounding times for science. Cheers!

Well Bruce Willis is getting a little old for the mission.

A strongly worded letter filed by the proper authorities is the most likely outcome.

Could make an interesting game.

Diverting an asteroid is very doable if it's discovered in time Vera Rubin should take care of that. If VCR doesn't see it coming then the question is moot.

VCR is going to tell us a *lot* about the solar system in the next ten years. The data will be public, we have AI to search data, we're going to find a lot of stuff.

When I was a wee lad, one of my Christmas presents was a collection of stories from the old Walt Disney show on tv.
The one about Dave's Crockett had to do with a comet about to hit the Earth.
Congress passed a law against it, but it still kept on coming!
So, that avenue is out…

Davy Crockett famously wrung the tail off Haley's comet, or so they say.

Probably from on top of Rocky Top!

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Thanks!

Armand

Earth's weather satellites just spent 10 years watching Venus — here's what they found

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Armand

Sonic Booms in the Sky: How Scientists Use "Bolides" To Improve Planetary Defense

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Armand

I know this one. You send up a probe that comes close to, but doesn't touch the asteroid. Instead it generates enough of its own gravity to change the asteroid's path. A nice little nudge. The idea has been around for a long time, but has no funding.

As a back up, you need Bruce Willis and a small nuke with a manual trigger on it.

At least we could have a go at stopping an asteroid. It's the Yellowstone super volcano that has me worried, plus or minus 10,000 years it's due to blow and when it does it's all over.

(smile)

Armand

Well…
3IAtlas, or whatever it's called, is guessed to be 12 miles in diameter, and shrieking through our Solar System at …37 thousand miles per hour.
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All of that will change by Halloween. Maybe.
Maybe I can get everything painted by then, and have a Grand Game on the 30th.
If it's gonna wipe out the Earth, I would rather sit in the bullseye. All those post apocalyptic books and movies are just too grim.
Maybe 30 million years from now, some amphibian archaeologists will dig up my FIW and Comanche figures, and call them "grave goods".
Or maybe cockroaches will have evolved.
I doubt after that time that my ancestors will have a legal claim.

@ John, it's due to pass between Mars and the Sun so I wouldn't worry. I suspect the stargazers will get excited about it although apparently only if they live in the southern hemisphere link

Ha!…

Armand