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What's going to be really interesting is what happens when its determined that there is a 95% chance of it hitting Iran or China or a similar geo political foe.
by wonderwonder 2y ago
What's going to be really interesting is what happens when its determined that there is a 95% chance of it hitting Iran or China or a similar geo political foe. Would be fascinating to watch the political deal making. If the asteroid has a 85% chance of destroying Iran's military capability and the US has the ability to stop the asteroid, what does the US do? What concessions does it force from Iran? Who is the current president of the US?
Interesting war gaming
- macintux 2y agoI would suspect that by the time we’re able to pick a location with that degree of certainty, it would be too late to do anything about it.
- XorNot 2y agoWe won't know that accurately: atmospheric drag, composition etc. will mean there's a large impact corridor. The chances of actually hitting something populated is also pretty low: there's a lot of ocean, and a lot of empty land.
- wonderwonder 2y agoI have zero skill set to challenge your assertations, I would simply think if we know this thing is coming and we have ~6 years, an awful lot of resources are likely going to be spent figuring out ways to track and potentially divert it. Then again, we may just ignore it, who knows.
- silverquiet 2y agoWe know that climate change is coming with one hundred percent certainty and are doing nothing to stop it. I don't think a few percent chance is going to move the needle much on humanity's collective priorities.
- rsynnott 2y ago> If the asteroid has a 85% chance of destroying Iran's military capability I strongly doubt that Iran's military capability can be destroyed by a single untargeted 8 megatonne airburst. China's _obviously_ cannot. The absolute worst case here is it goes off directly over a city (though, naturally, this is extremely unlikely, most of the world's surface not being covered in city). It's not a country-ending thing.
- GuB-42 2y agoIt will hit neither of these countries. It may hit India though. We know where it may hit within a relatively narrow band. But we don't know where within that band. Because the Earth and the asteroid are moving so fast, we need to have the timing precise to minutes or less to have an idea of where it will hit (if at all). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_YR4#Impact_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_YR4#Impact_effect
- hoseja 2y agoIt can hit north of South America, subsaharan Africa or India. It cannot hit Iran or China, we already know this.
- maxglute 2y agoOthers already mentioned the impact band. The more interesting question in pertinent scenario is whether countries will prevent asteroid deflection if it increases chance of randomly shifting impact to them by some %. I surmise no one will do anything to save someone elses ass, only their own, i.e. US saving India's ass but fragments end up over PRC and kills someone... congrats, just started WW3. Countries powerful enough to deflect, will risk fallout to avoid impact on itself... since weak suffer what they must.
- xracy 2y agoWell, at least the answer to the question "what weapons WW3 will be fought with" is "asteroids" that's a fun surprise. I guess we'll see if Sticks are still a thing we can fight with for WW4, but stones was definitely a solid prediction.