4 ms·

Don't know about you, but "2015 TB145" scares the shit out of me. What if the projected trajectory was an earth strike. There'd be no time to react. Humanity r

Don't know about you, but "2015 TB145" scares the shit out of me. What if the projected trajectory was an earth strike. There'd be no time to react. Humanity really needs to get together to address these existential threats.

pearlsteinj 11y ago
What could we possibly do to prepare/handle something like this?
- calbear81 11y ago
  Thank god that Hollywood had the foresight to give us a playbook (and live action simulation) for this exact situation: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/
  - smartt 11y ago
    And http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1307068/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1307068/ Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
    - hendler 11y ago
      And Deep Impact http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120647/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120647/
- jn 11y ago
  There are a whole range of options, if we have enough warning and invest in the technology[1]. My personal favourite is the gravity tractor: > One more alternative to explosive deflection is to move the asteroid slowly over a time. Tiny constant thrust accumulates to deviate an object sufficiently from its predicted course. Edward T. Lu and Stanley G. Love have proposed using a large heavy unmanned spacecraft hovering over an asteroid to gravitationally pull the latter into a non-threatening orbit. And the same technology could be used to actively "capture" asteroids for fun and profit [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance
- shiftpgdn 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance Shoot it with an ICBM. Better to be hit with buckshot than with a slug.
  - CapitalistCartr 11y ago
    ICBMs reach a velocity of about 5 km/sec., aren't reprogrammable in minutes to shoot at spsce rocks, and US ones at least carry weapons of less than 500 kt. This isn't going to do it. If we want to use nukes, which is questionable, the devices need to already be in high orbit to respond fast enough, have a radar guidance system, and be much more powerful. This is also a recipe to trigger WW 3.
    - shiftpgdn 11y ago
      I'm not suggesting it as a "minutes to go" safety measure. More of a "we have tons of rockets with nukes on them that can make it into space" just sitting around measure.
      - retbull 11y ago
        Making it to space isn't enough. They have to be able to escape completely and deliver a very large warhead to the asteroid.
- gshubert17 11y ago
  An asteroid that size has a very small escape velocity, on the order of a few meters per second. I think a mass driver which broke off small chunks of asteroid and hurled them to escape would not take too much power and be able to disassemble the asteroid in less than one orbit. (Advanced detection would be a plus here.) If we aimed the ejecta, to get a momentum change in a given direction, we would not have to completely disassemble the asteroid, because its orbit would change and eventually miss Earth. Complete disassembly would be safer, because small chunks would burn up in Earth's atmosphere.
Cshelton 11y ago
It's an entire 1.3 lunar distances away! Don't sweat it! =p But yeah, if it were a projected impact, the point of impact on Earth would see the largest evacuation ever. And/or we'd bring in the brightest minds and say you have 10 days, failure is not an option and hopefully history books would be made.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago
  But you learn more from failure.
  - molmalo 11y ago
    They could always say: We haven't failed. We just found a way that won't work to not save the human race the next time.
  - Cshelton 11y ago
    I take it back lol. At that velocity, we'd be screwed. We have nothing that could get something big enough, to a high enough orbit, and at that velocity...So yeah, it's pretty reassuring lol....
fla 11y ago
According to Wikipedia, a 300m+ impactor is indeed a serious threat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event
throwaway_yy2Di 11y ago
I think 2009 FD is the worrying one. It's incredibly dark, with a surface albedo of just 0.01. That means optical surveys would struggle to find it in deep space, even when it's half a kilometer wide, even with [0] the LSST telescope in the 2020's. This is why some people want space-based infrared telescopes for NEO surveys [1]. [0] http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0701506 http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0701506 [1] http://neocam.ipac.caltech.edu/page/whyinfrared http://neocam.ipac.caltech.edu/page/whyinfrared

pearlsteinj 11y ago

What could we possibly do to prepare/handle something like this?

calbear81 11y ago
Thank god that Hollywood had the foresight to give us a playbook (and live action simulation) for this exact situation: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/
- smartt 11y ago
  And http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1307068/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1307068/ Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
  - hendler 11y ago
    And Deep Impact http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120647/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120647/
jn 11y ago
There are a whole range of options, if we have enough warning and invest in the technology[1]. My personal favourite is the gravity tractor: > One more alternative to explosive deflection is to move the asteroid slowly over a time. Tiny constant thrust accumulates to deviate an object sufficiently from its predicted course. Edward T. Lu and Stanley G. Love have proposed using a large heavy unmanned spacecraft hovering over an asteroid to gravitationally pull the latter into a non-threatening orbit. And the same technology could be used to actively "capture" asteroids for fun and profit [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance
shiftpgdn 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance Shoot it with an ICBM. Better to be hit with buckshot than with a slug.
- CapitalistCartr 11y ago
  ICBMs reach a velocity of about 5 km/sec., aren't reprogrammable in minutes to shoot at spsce rocks, and US ones at least carry weapons of less than 500 kt. This isn't going to do it. If we want to use nukes, which is questionable, the devices need to already be in high orbit to respond fast enough, have a radar guidance system, and be much more powerful. This is also a recipe to trigger WW 3.
  - shiftpgdn 11y ago
    I'm not suggesting it as a "minutes to go" safety measure. More of a "we have tons of rockets with nukes on them that can make it into space" just sitting around measure.
    - retbull 11y ago
      Making it to space isn't enough. They have to be able to escape completely and deliver a very large warhead to the asteroid.
gshubert17 11y ago
An asteroid that size has a very small escape velocity, on the order of a few meters per second. I think a mass driver which broke off small chunks of asteroid and hurled them to escape would not take too much power and be able to disassemble the asteroid in less than one orbit. (Advanced detection would be a plus here.) If we aimed the ejecta, to get a momentum change in a given direction, we would not have to completely disassemble the asteroid, because its orbit would change and eventually miss Earth. Complete disassembly would be safer, because small chunks would burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

Cshelton 11y ago

It's an entire 1.3 lunar distances away! Don't sweat it! =p But yeah, if it were a projected impact, the point of impact on Earth would see the largest evacuation ever. And/or we'd bring in the brightest minds and say you have 10 days, failure is not an option and hopefully history books would be made.

0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago
But you learn more from failure.
- molmalo 11y ago
  They could always say: We haven't failed. We just found a way that won't work to not save the human race the next time.
- Cshelton 11y ago
  I take it back lol. At that velocity, we'd be screwed. We have nothing that could get something big enough, to a high enough orbit, and at that velocity...So yeah, it's pretty reassuring lol....

fla 11y ago

According to Wikipedia, a 300m+ impactor is indeed a serious threat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event

throwaway_yy2Di 11y ago

I think 2009 FD is the worrying one. It's incredibly dark, with a surface albedo of just 0.01. That means optical surveys would struggle to find it in deep space, even when it's half a kilometer wide, even with [0] the LSST telescope in the 2020's. This is why some people want space-based infrared telescopes for NEO surveys [1]. [0] http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0701506 http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0701506 [1] http://neocam.ipac.caltech.edu/page/whyinfrared http://neocam.ipac.caltech.edu/page/whyinfrared