[Vasudan Commander]

This is no joke.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/02/asteroid.reut/index.html


**starts listening to "end of the world" by REM*

[Mefustae]

In the words of my Natural Hazards lecturer:

"Head for the brothels!"

[Herra Tohtori]

(...)
Asteroid "2003 QQ47" will be closely monitored over the next two months. Its potential strike date is March 21, 2014, but astronomers say that any risk of impact is likely to decrease as further data is gathered. (...)

News is from September 2003. Astronomers have since had about 47 months to observe this particular asteroid, instead of the next two months that were mentioned in the news.

Seeing how we haven't really heard about it after the initial news, I'd say the risk of impact indeed decreased as further data was gathered.

That said, it'd be cool to have some hugish meteorite to hit some remote location of the world, enough to give a scare but not cause widespread destruction... Something like the Tunguska thingy.

[Mefustae]

Fun fact: If the Tunguska object had arrived two minutes later, it would have exploded over downtown London. Nah, **** that. Failure of communication.

[Snail]

Fun fact: If the Tunguska object had arrived two minutes later, it would have exploded over downtown London.

Very fun! Sweet!

[nubbles526]

one in 909,000

Well, we ARE VERY unlucky if we were the one.

Now everytime I discuss on this topic, I get real pissed. Because if a couple of shots from a ML-16 or a Fury, the Asteroid is in two smaller pieces. WHY can't the humans do that now? We have the money and technology!

[Shade]

Freespace asteroids are only about a hundred metres across. We can blow up stuff of that size no problems already, if we can hit it. The problem comes when we're in the sights of asteroids that aren't measured in metres, but in kilometres.

That said, it'd be cool to have some hugish meteorite to hit some remote location of the world, enough to give a scare but not cause widespread destruction... Something like the Tunguska thingy.

It would be cool - I'd definitely go see the crater afterwards But what I'd really like to see was a big one striking the moon, during the night, in a place that's visible from Earth. Now THAT would rock

[nubbles526]

Freespace asteroids are only about a hundred metres across. We can blow up stuff of that size no problems already, if we can hit it. The problem comes when we're in the sights of asteroids that aren't measured in metres, but in kilometres.

WARNING!

The following paragraphs contain intense spamming, due to Nubbles going berserk about can't stopping a few kilometer wide asteroid. We feriously apologize for this reason.

hmmm...for a 2.5km wide asteroid I would say a few bombers to can take it down...BUT the problem is, that we DON'T have bombers! And two, we DON'T have space bombs!

Ohhh...I can just see the vasudans laughing their ass off saying: "Ha! You destroyed the Lucifer, BUT you are so weak that you CAN'T destroy an Asteroid!" omg...

What's next? Calling all Alpha 1s on Earth to save the human race again? Yea, that could work. A few sacrafices (I'll estimate at least 5000) could stop a freaking asteroid...

Is Terran command going to do something about this? OH NO! He is sitting with his fat ass inside the GTD Gallaway, a probably hanging out with Cindy! (AGAIN) He doesn't even bother to think: "Oh! Earth in 2014 is being destroyed!" Oh well you know what Command? Without Earth YOU and your freaking family wouldn't exist! SO beat that.

Sorry for spamming...I needed a stress reliever. But anyways, yes, it could be very scary. And if we blow the asteroid up, there would be million chunks of asteroids (instead of one) heading to Earth.

[Mobius]

Why the hell you are worried?

[Shade]

One wonders. Sure, there's reason to be a little worried, as in "Hey, maybe we should spend more money on looking for near-earth asteroids, and maybe develop some plans for countering them". But it's a very low risk, far less than getting killed in traffic, so nothing to lose sleep over.

[TrashMan]

Wouldn't quite agree on that.
Earth has been hit by bigger rocks trought history...FAR more often than most people relize...alltough not that much in the most recent history...which makes me wonder...when's the next big one due?

Humanitys ability to detect incoming asteroids is really poor

[IceFire]

Not so much:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_QQ47

Changes are slim to nil.  The same thing happened with a dozen asteroids.  2029 and 2032 are another set of doomsday years.  Oh and 2012 apparently...but not for asteroids.  End of the Mayan calendar and some sort of planetary alignment with the galactic plane and whatnot.

[Mobius]

Changes are slim to nil.  The same thing happened with a dozen asteroids.  2029 and 2032 are another set of doomsday years.  Oh and 2012 apparently...but not for asteroids.  End of the Mayan calendar and some sort of planetary alignment with the galactic plane and whatnot.

I heard from Mayans that this change is not supposed to be a bad one. In simple terms, a new Era is going to start...full of changes and stuff like that.

[nubbles526]

Not so much:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_QQ47

Changes are slim to nil.  The same thing happened with a dozen asteroids.  2029 and 2032 are another set of doomsday years.  Oh and 2012 apparently...but not for asteroids.  End of the Mayan calendar and some sort of planetary alignment with the galactic plane and whatnot.

Darn it, now we are dumber than Mayans!

Humanitys ability to detect incoming asteroids is really poor

Command: Pilots! The asteroids that are heading for Earth is indicated in a white bracket! And I think Carl is flying one of them...

Yes, Trashman. I agree. Theres still hundreds (perhaps thousands) that are targeting Earth, and those are the which we don't know about.

Why the hell you are worried?

Excuse me, as I clearly shown (perhaps) in my panic message, I would be totally ashamed if we get killed by an asteroid. I mean, we have the money to develop Earth protection systems, but we aren't doing it. It also means the human race is being destroyed by something that is tottally avoidable.

On impact, it could have the effect of 20 million Hiroshima atomic bombs

Well then the Lucifer beams surely must be 20 trillion...

[Maxwell]

Your living on a speck of land on a planet in a speck of a solar system thats a speck in a galaxy which itself is a speck in the universe.
There are a trillion ways to be wiped out by the forces in motion around us and so far we've only got a few loose promise from a handful of governments to try and expand our survival options by moving beyond earth.

I don't think a rock crashing down, even on a major city, would change anyones minds over the long term.
It would only have a 9/11 effect.  Everyones thought in year one, but forgotten by year 5.

[Dark Hunter]

What are the chances it would hit a city anyway? Why not some random chunk of land out in the middle of nowhere? Or, more likely still, the ocean?


I'm not too worried.

[nubbles526]

Your living on a speck of land on a planet in a speck of a solar system thats a speck in a galaxy which itself is a speck in the universe.
There are a trillion ways to be wiped out by the forces in motion around us and so far we've only got a few loose promise from a handful of governments to try and expand our survival options by moving beyond earth.

I don't think a rock crashing down, even on a major city, would change anyones minds over the long term.
It would only have a 9/11 effect.  Everyones thought in year one, but forgotten by year 5.

I hope you did read my posts...

On impact, it could have the effect of 20 million Hiroshima atomic bombs

[Herra Tohtori]

Asteroid Impact Effect calculator: Have some fun creatign your personal apocalypse and determining it's effects on you and the world around you!

Allow me to paste an example about the effects of a 1-km diameter heavy rock asteroid hitting Tampere (160 km, or about 100 miles distance) at relative velocity of 20 km/s:

Your Inputs:
Distance from Impact: 234.00 km = 145.31 miles
Projectile Diameter: 1000.00 m = 3280.00 ft = 0.62 miles
Projectile Density: 3000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 20.00 km/s = 12.42 miles/s
Impact Angle: 60 degrees
Target Density: 2750 kg/m3
Target Type: Crystalline Rock

Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: 3.14 x 1020 Joules = 7.50 x 10^4 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years is 6.2 x 105years

Atmospheric Entry:
The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 56600 meters = 186000 ft
The projectile reaches the ground in a broken condition. The mass of projectile strikes the surface at velocity 19.9 km/s = 12.4 miles/s
The impact energy is 3.11 x 1020 Joules = 7.43 x 104MegaTons.
The broken projectile fragments strike the ground in an ellipse of dimension 1.27 km by 1.1 km

Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.

Crater Dimensions:

Crater shape is normal in spite of atmospheric crushing; fragments are not significantly dispersed.

Transient Crater Diameter: 11.8 km = 7.3 miles
Transient Crater Depth: 4.16 km = 2.58 miles

Final Crater Diameter: 16.3 km = 10.1 miles
Final Crater Depth: 0.685 km = 0.426 miles
The crater formed is a complex crater.
The volume of the target melted or vaporized is 2.4 km3 = 0.575 miles3
Roughly half the melt remains in the crater , where its average thickness is 22.1 meters = 72.5 feet


Thermal Radiation:

Time for maximum radiation: 0.681 seconds after impact

Visible fireball radius: 9.25 km = 5.75 miles
The fireball appears 8.99 times larger than the sun
Thermal Exposure: 1.64 x 106 Joules/m2
Duration of Irradiation: 176 seconds
Radiant flux (relative to the sun): 9.29

Effects of Thermal Radiation:

Much of the body suffers second degree burns

Deciduous trees ignite

Seismic Effects:

The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 46.8 seconds.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 7.9
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 234 km:

VI. Felt by all, many frightened. Some heavy furniture moved; a few instances of fallen plaster. Damage slight.

VII. Damage negligible in buildings of good design and construction; slight to moderate in well-built ordinary structures; considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures; some chimneys broken.

Ejecta:

The ejecta will arrive approximately 223 seconds after the impact.
Average Ejecta Thickness: 1.33 cm = 0.523 inches
Mean Fragment Diameter: 1.1 cm = 0.432 inches

Air Blast:

The air blast will arrive at approximately 709 seconds.
Peak Overpressure: 22300 Pa = 0.223 bars = 3.17 psi
Max wind velocity: 48.2 m/s = 108 mph
Sound Intensity: 87 dB (Loud as heavy traffic)
Damage Description:

Glass windows will shatter.

About 30 percent of trees blown down; remainder have some branches and leaves blown off.

...

[Maxwell]

I hope you did read my posts...

On impact, it could have the effect of 20 million Hiroshima atomic bombs

Actually I was speaking about a bad strike in general, not a particular rock.

Right now we don' t have the ability to so much as float a deep space radar of any useful power. Solar panels can't generate the wattage and theres no safe way to launch a big enough reactor.
This also means making a large scale colony is not happening anytime soon, and despite all the good reasons to do so theres no one really working on that.

There are two possibilities from there if a rock were to fall tomorrow:
1) We get a nasty wakeup call.
2) We are obliterated.

As I said, the wakeup call will last for a few years till we get back to our old shenanigans.  The earth getting totaled rules out the chance existing societies will ever inhabit space on a large scale, even if they survive.

[Mobius]

Why the hell you are worried?

Excuse me, as I clearly shown (perhaps) in my panic message, I would be totally ashamed if we get killed by an asteroid. I mean, we have the money to develop Earth protection systems, but we aren't doing it. It also means the human race is being destroyed by something that is tottally avoidable.

Our civilization is young as well as our species. Are you aware of the number of catastrophes that hit our planet? Much bigger asteroid hit Terra and caused mass extinctions. Even the explosion of Supernovae is an enormous threat...at least one mass extiction was caused by a Supernova exploded in a 200 light years range from here. But something survived and started a new era...

Back where it started^TM