Yes, an 800 megaton blast would be directly survivable for those not immediately affected by the impact, but what about possible collapse of the foodchain if enough particulates are injected into the stratosphere? Not to mention ecconomic collapse for a large portion of the world if it hits just about anywhere in an industrialized region? Wouldn't you rather go quickly, than slowly starve or freeze to death? Where does that leave us? So nuclear blasts won't deflect it (forget about an ion engine putting away in a crevasse), and they won't destroy it. Why spend money to land a beacon on it to refine it's orbit when there's nothing that can be done about it? Why bother tracking any near-earth objects at all? Have certain astronomers handed us propaganda just to secure funding (paychecks) for pet projects for which there is no solution if a large impactor is discovered? So we can throw trillions of dollars at new technology that won't do a thing, so we can feel good about doing "something"? Just curious, I'm not the pessimist here, but asking questions prompted by those who have suggested that our options are (extremely) limited. I've been trying to float ideas (albeit off-the-cuff), not shooting them down. What can be done, if anything? --- Brent Watson <brentjwatson@yahoo.com> wrote:
I just did some quick, back of the envelope calculations on the energy in MN2004. They show that its kinetic energy is equivalent to 8.17E8 tons of TNT - that's 817 megatons of TNT. This is based on a mass of 4.6E10 kg., and an impact velocity of 1.24E4 m/sec. Assuming ALL of the energy of three 50 megaton blasts went into changing the velocity of the asteroid, it wouldn't change the impact effect all that much. Of course, since its velocity changed, it would delay its impact until another revolution, or eliminate it all together.
Unfortunately, since these blasts would be impulses, and not steady applied forces, chances of the velocity changing may be small, and the result only be that the mass of the asteroid still impacts the earth and its atmosphere. Now, however, it would be radioactive.
What would be the effect of all those radioactive particles, boulders, and gases striking the earth? Would it destroy the upper layers of the atmosphere, and leave us without vital protection against UV, etc.?
BTW, Krakatoa was 200 megatons. The 800 megaton blast would be very survivable for MOST (>99.999%) of the life on earth.
Oh well, its going to miss us anyway. But the estimate is that it would be as bright as magnitude 3.3 as it passes by. That should be a real show!
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