5 ms·

Is it a comety composition? Crash it into mars for some ocean and atmosphere?

XorNot 5y ago
I keep hoping we'll get lucky in my lifetime and something big like that will just hit Mars on it's own. It would be a hell of a world to go from "desert" to "so we've got all these new oceans to name and also you can't breathe it but ground level pressure is one atmosphere".
- tmp538394722 5y ago
  I think seeing something world changingly large randomly smashing into our next door neighbor would leave me feeling something other than lucky. But sure if it’s gonna happen, let’s get the neighbors a pool! Just let me uh… change my shorts.
  - rob74 5y ago
    I say, better to have it happen on Mars than on Earth! Such an event would probably even have the positive effect of raising awareness and increasing funding of programmes that monitor asteroids hazardous to earth and technologies to deflect them.
  - matkoniecz 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker–Levy_9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker–Levy_9 An entire fragmented comet impacted Jupiter in 1994 > Over the next six days, 21 distinct impacts were observed, with the largest coming on July 18 at 07:33 UTC when fragment G struck Jupiter. This impact created a giant dark spot over 12,000 km (7,500 mi) across, and was estimated to have released an energy equivalent to 6,000,000 megatons of TNT (600 times the world's nuclear arsenal).[24] Two impacts 12 hours apart on July 19 created impact marks of similar size to that caused by fragment G, and impacts continued until July 22, when fragment W struck the planet.[25]
    - tmp538394722 5y ago
      This is awesome. Thanks for sharing. > Although the impacts took place on the side of Jupiter hidden from Earth, Galileo, then at a distance of 1.6 AU (240 million km; 150 million mi) from the planet, was able to see the impacts as they occurred. We’re getting better at this stuff!
lumost 5y ago
I'm not sure how the mechanics of a 200 km wide comety like object hitting Mars at ~25 km/s would work out, but I'm reasonably certain that it would result in a major resurfacing event. I'd venture that the majority of the gasses would retain escape velocity following impact.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Well, since we’re just assuming we could meaningfully change it’s trajectory we might as well also assume we could slow it down!
  - hodgesrm 5y ago
    Slowing it down would take way more energy than just nudging in a different direction. You might be better off trying to break it up into smaller pieces.
    - monkeycantype 5y ago
      Taking notes.... Small pieces... uh ha, yep got it,.. Slow it down... yep. What else?
      - Scarblac 5y ago
        Make sure they hit at a safe distance from our Mars rovers, I like them.
    - monkeycantype 5y ago
      how would we aerobreak it in mars's atmosphere into a decaying orbit, so instead of slamming into mars, it breaks up and rains down on mars? What can we tell about the composition - a solid rock or icy rubble?
      - minitoar 5y ago
        You get it into an orbit that will have several close encounters with Mars or other planets with atmosphere and you do a bit of aerobraking/thrusting on each pass.

I keep hoping we'll get lucky in my lifetime and something big like that will just hit Mars on it's own. It would be a hell of a world to go from "desert" to "so we've got all these new oceans to name and also you can't breathe it but ground level pressure is one atmosphere".

tmp538394722 5y ago
I think seeing something world changingly large randomly smashing into our next door neighbor would leave me feeling something other than lucky. But sure if it’s gonna happen, let’s get the neighbors a pool! Just let me uh… change my shorts.
- rob74 5y ago
  I say, better to have it happen on Mars than on Earth! Such an event would probably even have the positive effect of raising awareness and increasing funding of programmes that monitor asteroids hazardous to earth and technologies to deflect them.
- matkoniecz 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker–Levy_9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker–Levy_9 An entire fragmented comet impacted Jupiter in 1994 > Over the next six days, 21 distinct impacts were observed, with the largest coming on July 18 at 07:33 UTC when fragment G struck Jupiter. This impact created a giant dark spot over 12,000 km (7,500 mi) across, and was estimated to have released an energy equivalent to 6,000,000 megatons of TNT (600 times the world's nuclear arsenal).[24] Two impacts 12 hours apart on July 19 created impact marks of similar size to that caused by fragment G, and impacts continued until July 22, when fragment W struck the planet.[25]
  - tmp538394722 5y ago
    This is awesome. Thanks for sharing. > Although the impacts took place on the side of Jupiter hidden from Earth, Galileo, then at a distance of 1.6 AU (240 million km; 150 million mi) from the planet, was able to see the impacts as they occurred. We’re getting better at this stuff!

lumost 5y ago

I'm not sure how the mechanics of a 200 km wide comety like object hitting Mars at ~25 km/s would work out, but I'm reasonably certain that it would result in a major resurfacing event. I'd venture that the majority of the gasses would retain escape velocity following impact.

tshaddox 5y ago
Well, since we’re just assuming we could meaningfully change it’s trajectory we might as well also assume we could slow it down!
- hodgesrm 5y ago
  Slowing it down would take way more energy than just nudging in a different direction. You might be better off trying to break it up into smaller pieces.
  - monkeycantype 5y ago
    Taking notes.... Small pieces... uh ha, yep got it,.. Slow it down... yep. What else?
    - Scarblac 5y ago
      Make sure they hit at a safe distance from our Mars rovers, I like them.
  - monkeycantype 5y ago
    how would we aerobreak it in mars's atmosphere into a decaying orbit, so instead of slamming into mars, it breaks up and rains down on mars? What can we tell about the composition - a solid rock or icy rubble?
    - minitoar 5y ago
      You get it into an orbit that will have several close encounters with Mars or other planets with atmosphere and you do a bit of aerobraking/thrusting on each pass.