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--------------------- 2627 - ASTEROID - to hit Mother Earth
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- The first idea was to send a rocket to intercept it carrying a nuclear warhead. Blow the asteroid to smithereens. So, instead of a big rock heading towards us we have a million small one. Like buckshot from a shotgun there is still a lot of damage heading our way. What then?
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- Then, don’t us a big bomb use a small one. One just the right size to vaporize some of the surface on one side of the asteroid and deflect it off course. The trick is to get just the right size. The bomb could still launch some small rocks that are still heading our way even though the big rock is deflected off its trajectory.
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- Ok, then use a bunch of small bombs. Like shooting the asteroid with a pellet gun. Not enough to damage anything but repeated boosts that eventually redirect to asteroid’s trajectory. Calculations are that a one mile per hour impact could direct an asteroid 170,000 miles off course if we started hitting it 20 years before it got here.
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- Maybe we do not need bombs? Maybe the solar wind could do the job? Sunlight hitting a shiny white surface over a long period of time would redirect the asteroid. We could just paint one side of the asteroid a shiny white. Or, a matt black if we wanted sunlight absorption to be the redirecting force. White paint or black paint, whatever, sunlight could push the asteroid out of our path.
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- Painting may be messy. Why not just install a giant mirror on the asteroid. The Solar Wind pushing on the mirror would do the job of redirecting the rogue asteroid.. However, attaching anything to the surface of an asteroid might have the unintended consequence of dislodging boulders or smaller rocks that would still remain as buckshot heading our way.
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- What about replacing the solar sail with a solar net? A 550 pound carbon fiber mesh could wrap around the asteroid. The net material could absorb the amount of Sun radiation needed to redirect the asteroid off course. The net would keep any buckshot from escaping from the asteroid. The net would have to be installed at least 18 years in advance.
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- Or, instead of one giant mirror why not a number of mirrors in orbit about the asteroid. The could be focused to beam sunlight on to the asteroid like a magnifying glass. Vaporization on the surface would act as a thruster to send the asteroid off its course.
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- Some astronomers like the direct approach. Just attach a rocket to the surface and light it off. The giant rocket thrust will do the job. Again, landing, attaching, and restraining a giant rocket is risky business.
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- Well the final suggestion is to just let it happen and use the time here on Earth to prepare for the impact. Just like preparing for a nuclear holocaust. Maybe a late redirect could cause the impact to be mid ocean instead of hitting a population center.
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- It is not if, it is when will we face these decisions and what will we do? Like dinosaurs we may give up the Earth and turn it over to the cockroaches, or, whatever survives the next mass extinction. Something to think about, or NOT.
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- In 1908 an asteroid 60 meters in diameter exploded above the ground over the Tunguska River in Central Siberia, Russia.
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- An asteroid named “ Eros” , 33,000 meters in diameter came within 20,000,000 miles as it zipped by Earth.
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- An asteroid 1,000 meters across has the explosive power of 20,000 megatons of TNT. An asteroid that size is projected to hit Earth every few million years, on average.
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- Smaller asteroids are more numerous. A 100 meter rock ( 20 megatons TNT) is projected to hit us every 100 years, on average.
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- The Chicxulub Crater in the Yucatan, Mexico, is 100 kilometers across. It was caused by an asteroid impact 17,500 miles across.
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------------------ The Density of this rock was 2,700 kilograms / cubic meter.
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------------------ The Volume was 2.81 * 10^12 cubic meters
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------------------ Mass = Density * Volume
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------------------ The mass was 7.6*10^15 kilograms
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------------------ Kinetic Energy = ½ mass * (velocity)^2
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------------------ The Velocity was 20,000 meters / second ( 45,000 miles per hour)
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------------------ The Kinetic Energy was 1.52*10^24 joules
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------------------ One ton of TNT releases 4,200,000,000 joules of energy
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------------------ The Chicxulub impact was equivalent to 300 trillion tons of TNT
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------------------ A magnitude 7 Earthquake is 10^15 joules.
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-Therefore, the Chicxulub impact was equivalent to five magnitude 7 earthquakes going off all at once.
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- It was equivalent to 2,000,000 atomic bombs exploding at the same time. No wonder it killed off all the dinosaurs.
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------------------------------------------- Other Reviews you might be interested in?
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- 2595 - ASTEROID - Teacher’s Lesson Plan. The fastest spinning asteroid was discovered by an amateur astronomer, but using a professional telescope by remote control. This just became available to all teachers who want to teach some astronomy using the internet. About the Chicxulub Crater in the Yucatan, Mexico.
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- 2332 - Asteroids, comets, and meteors are ice balls and rocks orbiting the Sun just like our planet. What we call these objects all depends on where the debris was formed in the accretion disk that rotated around the Sun when the planets were formed.
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- 2323 - See Reviews 2226 about the Ryugu asteroid mission and Review 2203 about the Bennu mission. Review 2044 is about asteroid Oumaumau and its appendix lists 11 more reviews about asteroids in general. This Review focuses on the early results of their asteroid encounters, as of March, 2019.
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- 2314 - On December 18, 2018, an asteroid barreled through the atmosphere at a speed of 72,000 miles per hour , on a steep trajectory of seven degrees. Measuring several meters in size, the space rock exploded 16 miles above the Earth's surface, with an impact energy of 173 kilotons.
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- 2296 - Asteroids are small, airless rocky worlds revolving around the sun that are too small to be called planets. They are also known as planetoids or minor planets. In total, the mass of all the asteroids is less than that of Earth's moon. But despite their size, asteroids can be dangerous. Asteroids can reach as large as Ceres that is 583 miles across. More than 150 asteroids are known t have companion moons. Ironically, the collisions that could mean death to humans may be the same reason we are alive today.
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- 2250 - Asteroids visits and impacts. We have several spacecrafts visiting asteroids right now. January, 2019. This Review will summarize the current visits and then get into the history even some that are evident on the Earth and on the Moon. We had a spacecraft visit the asteroid Itokawa in 2005 and the asteroids Ryugu and Bennu in 2019.
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- 2226 Asteroid Ryugu. Spacecraft landed on the surface on September 2018. What have we learned? The Japanese spacecraft is studying the asteroid named Ryugu. After over a 3 year journey the spacecraft has released rovers to the surface to make measurements. For the next 18 months, the spacecraft will probe, poke, prod and impact the asteroid, deploying the small lander and three rovers to hop along the surface.
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- 2209 Asteroid Oumuamua from another solar system. If Oumuamua came from an extrasolar planetary system like our solar system, it is much more likely to have begun its journey as a comet. The ejection of an asteroid from an extrasolar system is much less likely and could involve a violent event such as the explosion of a star.
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- 2203 Asteroid Bennu. Arrived December 2019 and will inspect every square inch of the asteroid before returning home in 2023.
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- 2044 - Asteroid Oumuamua is needle shaped asteroid ,1,300 feet long, 360 feet diameter, on a long hyperbolic orbit. It is traveling at 58,900 miles per hour. This asteroid came from outside our system. It is on its way back into deep space. Active asteroids or main belt comets could have played a part in making Earth habitable.
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- 1924 - Visitors from outer space. Asteroids and supernovae affect life on Earth. Detective work is looking at the evidence. Did the asteroid that struck the Yucatan Peninsula kill off the dinosaurs? Did supernova 1987 affect life on Earth?
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- 1923 - In 2017 50 asteroids passed us at a distance closer than our Moon. When will a big asteroid hit the Earth? What is the mission that will land a spacecraft on an asteroid and bring back a sample of its surface? This mission to also to determine the likelihood of it impacting Earth. It comes by every 6 years.
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- 1871 - Asteroids and their Trojan orbits. In order to predict asteroids trajectories we need to learn about their composition. Missions will soon visit two asteroids to learn more. Maybe, where life originated.
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- 1829 - Dwarf planets and asteroids. Not the 8 planets in our Solar System ,but, the Dwarf Planets , asteroids, and comets that have had the most impact on the evolution of life on Earth.
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- 1825 - Asteroids responsible for evolution on Earth? How many times has Earth been hit by a large asteroid? What is the likelihood of another hit? What is Congress and NASA doing about this potential danger? The math to calculate the energy of an impact.
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- 1769 - When is the next asteroid going to hit Earth? How many are near Earth objects intersecting our orbit around the Sun? How big are they? What can we do about an imminent impact?
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- 1580 - Asteroids the bricks that built the Solar System. In 2013 there were 551,621 registered asteroids. Ceres is the biggest at 620 miles in diameter.
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- 1554 - Asteroids and meteorites are fossils with stories.
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- 1429 - There is an asteroid heading right towards us.
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- 1375 - There is an asteroid following us. Earth and the asteroid share the same orbit around the Sun.
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- 1309 - Vesta and Ceres get a visitor, the Dawn spacecraft.
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- 1296 - When an asteroid hit Manson, Iowa.
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- 1265 - This asteroid missed us, but , what if? June 27, 2011.
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- 1315 - How do asteroids and planets evolve?
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- 1193 - Asteroid to hit mother Earth? About the Chicxulub Crater in the Yucatan, Mexico.
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- 937 - Spinning Asteroid, teacher’s lesson plan. “Spinning Asteroid - A t Teacher’s Lesson Plan”. How student can use the Faulkes Telescope to do astronomy 24-7 (faulkestelescope.com/education)
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- 913 - Apophis and killer asteroids
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- 660 - Asteroids, Comets and Russian Rouulette.
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- 635 - Asteroid Apophis arrives April 17, 2006
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- February 19, 2020 1193 2627
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--------------------- Thursday, February 20, 2020 --------------------
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