3 ms·
It's 140 miles across, it only needs to brush up against our atmosphere at orbital speeds to wipe out entire cities. Also, it has to be decelerated when coming
by withinboredom 4y ago
It's 140 miles across, it only needs to brush up against our atmosphere at orbital speeds to wipe out entire cities.
Also, it has to be decelerated when coming into Earth's influence. If it the thrusters were to break down or something go wrong -- bam, Earth gone.
- scotty79 4y agoI think the volcano that erupted last year was perfectly capable of wiping out a city (Two orders of magnitude stronger than Hiroshima nuke). So, we'd "just" need to be super careful to not drop it on any city.
- withinboredom 4y agohence why I said "one accident"
- scotty79 4y agoStill, just a city wiped. Not exactly Earth's gone. I think apocalyptic asteroids are that dangerous mostly because of high speeds. It's mv^2 after all.
- withinboredom 4y ago:facepalm: If you "drop" it on a city, the entire Earth is wiped out. You do know how the dinosaurs were wiped out right? Look up how big that one was and compare sizes.
- scotty79 4y agoIt was 9 miles in diameter and travelled at 45,000 miles per hour. https://www.activewild.com/how-big-was-the-asteroid-that-killed-the-dinosaurs/ https://www.activewild.com/how-big-was-the-asteroid-that-kil... Quite fast given that ISS which is very close to Earth needs to do 17100mph to keep this small orbit. But you are right 140 miles across would be deadly in any scenario.
- joshspankit 4y agoDoes anyone have a direct line to Randall Munroe?