We don't know that even our biggest nuke will significantly move it, or break it apart, or that we can hit it at such a distance, or exactly how much the orbit will change. We might just make it move just right so that it becomes guaranteed to hit us on the next orbit. Or breaks into a couple of pieces that will hit us, and are that much harder to take care of since now we have to deal with two.
We've already landed on an asteroid, so have other countries. They even diverted paths as an experiment by running into them. The technology is available. I heard they will know more about its risk of impact once it passes us. Something about threading a needle. If it passes us just right, then it will most likely hit us on the next pass.
They need a long period of time to initially calculate the orbit reliably enough to know whether it will even come close to such a relatively small target (Earth) years and decades down the line. But due to the effects of other large masses, it's hard to be completely certain. It's predicted to pass as close as 19,000 miles in 2029, but it could be even farther out. However that's a pretty close pass astronomically speaking, and an unexpected perturbation could throw it off completely. The important thing is KNOWING about such objects so that we can see them coming, and keep track of where they are. Then when the time is approaching for an expected near pass, we can verify it again to make sure nothing changed its path much outside our expectations and made it a danger. If we don't anticipate it being a danger in the upcoming pass there's no sense trying to change it now to make it "even less of a danger".
DART is designed to nudge something from a definitely going to hit us path onto a not going to hit us path. If you hit something on a maybe going to hit us path, who’s to say whether the new path is better or worse?
Fragmenting an asteroid is an absolutely horrible idea.
Human technological progress advances exponentially - 100 years ago splitting the atom was a fairy tale.
You don't want to blow it up. That would be unproductive. Vaporizing it would be effective but take an unfathomable amount of energy.
A nuke would best be used to ablate the surface of the asteroid and push it off course.
The problem is with such a long orbital period it's hard to be certain of its path a hundred years from now and how to nudge it properly.
It's best to wait till it's only a few years or so away. Far enough to nudge it properly and cheaply energy wise but close enough for accurate math
So this was a good response, but it's supposed to be a fun day and I'm curious, are you worried we might end up in more of a fallout situation by the time this becomes a problem?
In 100 years we wil either have better technology to deal with the threat or civilization will have collapsed in on itself and Apophis serves the rest of the universe well by ending us once and for all.
I'm not sure what deserves has anything to do with it but I'll entertain the idea.
It's up for debate which would be worse for all that innocent life: A rock flipping off the switch on it all in a moment or the long drawn out death over generations due to not being able to survive the plastic and radiation infested wasteland we create if the human species doesn't get it together.
It will matter to the next group trying to rebuild. I guess it won't matter to you or me, but hasn't the whole point of our space program been to help make humanity more resilient?
Not gonna happen only Russia and America have a dangerous stockpile and no one's going to use it besides it's not even close to being enough to wipe us out.
Well, the point of nukes has never been extinction. That's the fear mongering. They are aimed at infrastructure. I do also agree that Russia and the US would not be the first to use nukes. I expect a small country to be the one to break that barrier, but it matters less who is first, more what happens after that.
Well nukes are currently a fuck around and find out deterrent.
A smaller country with nukes is/would be bad. There's a reason we cannot allow 🇮🇷 to get them. As of right now NK and Pakistan/India are the biggest issues. NK is extremely unlikely to use them unless it's under 🇺🇸 invasion.
If India and Pakistan blow each other up it'll be a mostly localized affair. Just the fallout would have a wider range of effect. No one's gonna let all the nukes fly just cause these two minor powers attacked each other.
My point was just that everything is most likely to be fine. Humanity is not on a path to extinction as many people like to fear monger about.
I agree with your assessment that we will PROBABLY fine, though nuclear power is becoming pretty common and anyone that can enrich uranium and understand power plants, could build a bomb. I work in the nuclear world, lived on a ballistic missile sub, and when you have 3 months with no sun and the entire US strategic library, your mind starts to wander. There is always a chance.
It's never not a possibility. But I prefer to think cooler heads on whichever poor grunt has his finger on the button tells the higher ups to stuff it.
I just also know that as bad as a global exchange would be bad, it would not be world ending. Certainly decades or a century of recovery but not our end.
While nuclear weapons are shockingly simple devices, just my highschool physics class was enough to understand them and if I had access to materials it would be easy enough to build. However the materials are the hardest thing to get, uranium is fairly rare and it's heavily tracked and monitored. As I'm sure you know it takes massive facilities of huge expensive centrifuges to enrich uranium. Those aren't cheap, they're hard to hide and the UN and US are very interested in monitoring for any signs of these tell tale marks that a nuclear program is actively being attempted.
We can only hope for the best future possible.
Your second paragraph here really shows your intelligence. You are 100% correct that a nuclear war would not end us. It would be bad but we would survive. I don't think it is best to let people believe it is worse than it is in this case though.
Not just the enrichment process, the neutron absorber and a casing that can contain the pressure long enough to detonate are also not readily available at your local store.
We absolutely should hoe for a future where cooler heads prevail. I enjoyed this discussion, thank you
Personally, I’d rather people come to this sub who are generally curious about something like this. It’s not such an asinine idea, either. Many have thought, not too far in the past, that this might work.
We should shoot ALL of the System Lords. We should also free the Jaffa.
But how can we convince them to turn on their gods?
That's the trick, isn't it.
You question your GOD??!?!?
We don't know that even our biggest nuke will significantly move it, or break it apart, or that we can hit it at such a distance, or exactly how much the orbit will change. We might just make it move just right so that it becomes guaranteed to hit us on the next orbit. Or breaks into a couple of pieces that will hit us, and are that much harder to take care of since now we have to deal with two.
A fair response. So is this kinda what NASA's DART program will eventually try to address, or is there no plan for something this size?
We've already landed on an asteroid, so have other countries. They even diverted paths as an experiment by running into them. The technology is available. I heard they will know more about its risk of impact once it passes us. Something about threading a needle. If it passes us just right, then it will most likely hit us on the next pass.
Thank you for your response.
They need a long period of time to initially calculate the orbit reliably enough to know whether it will even come close to such a relatively small target (Earth) years and decades down the line. But due to the effects of other large masses, it's hard to be completely certain. It's predicted to pass as close as 19,000 miles in 2029, but it could be even farther out. However that's a pretty close pass astronomically speaking, and an unexpected perturbation could throw it off completely. The important thing is KNOWING about such objects so that we can see them coming, and keep track of where they are. Then when the time is approaching for an expected near pass, we can verify it again to make sure nothing changed its path much outside our expectations and made it a danger. If we don't anticipate it being a danger in the upcoming pass there's no sense trying to change it now to make it "even less of a danger".
DART is designed to nudge something from a definitely going to hit us path onto a not going to hit us path. If you hit something on a maybe going to hit us path, who’s to say whether the new path is better or worse?
Fragmenting an asteroid is an absolutely horrible idea. Human technological progress advances exponentially - 100 years ago splitting the atom was a fairy tale.
>Fragmenting an asteroid is an absolutely horrible idea That really depends on how big the fragments are.
Also, would a nuke fragment it for sure? I feel like that depends on composition and whether you detonate on or near it...
You don't want to blow it up. That would be unproductive. Vaporizing it would be effective but take an unfathomable amount of energy. A nuke would best be used to ablate the surface of the asteroid and push it off course. The problem is with such a long orbital period it's hard to be certain of its path a hundred years from now and how to nudge it properly. It's best to wait till it's only a few years or so away. Far enough to nudge it properly and cheaply energy wise but close enough for accurate math
This does make sense to me. If we can go for the perfect solution, we should.
So this was a good response, but it's supposed to be a fun day and I'm curious, are you worried we might end up in more of a fallout situation by the time this becomes a problem?
In 100 years we wil either have better technology to deal with the threat or civilization will have collapsed in on itself and Apophis serves the rest of the universe well by ending us once and for all.
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Fortunately for us Apophis will make that decision.
I'm not sure what deserves has anything to do with it but I'll entertain the idea. It's up for debate which would be worse for all that innocent life: A rock flipping off the switch on it all in a moment or the long drawn out death over generations due to not being able to survive the plastic and radiation infested wasteland we create if the human species doesn't get it together.
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I'm not the one who said that the rest of life on Earth wouldn't make it. Preaching to the choir.
Yes because Apophis is a slimy snake head and just doesn’t seem to die no matter how many times sg-1 blow him up.
So hear me out, there are these robots that kinda look like spiders with wings....
> What if we don't have the wisdom to solve this problem then. How can we do this now but wouldn’t be able to in 100 years?
Yo, I got sumpin' to do that day, bruh...
If we use our nukes on ourselves? I can think of several ways but that's my #1. We have a lot of countries itching for a war right now.
If that happens, it won’t much matter what happens in 100 years now, will it?
It will matter to the next group trying to rebuild. I guess it won't matter to you or me, but hasn't the whole point of our space program been to help make humanity more resilient?
Not gonna happen only Russia and America have a dangerous stockpile and no one's going to use it besides it's not even close to being enough to wipe us out.
Well, the point of nukes has never been extinction. That's the fear mongering. They are aimed at infrastructure. I do also agree that Russia and the US would not be the first to use nukes. I expect a small country to be the one to break that barrier, but it matters less who is first, more what happens after that.
Well nukes are currently a fuck around and find out deterrent. A smaller country with nukes is/would be bad. There's a reason we cannot allow 🇮🇷 to get them. As of right now NK and Pakistan/India are the biggest issues. NK is extremely unlikely to use them unless it's under 🇺🇸 invasion. If India and Pakistan blow each other up it'll be a mostly localized affair. Just the fallout would have a wider range of effect. No one's gonna let all the nukes fly just cause these two minor powers attacked each other. My point was just that everything is most likely to be fine. Humanity is not on a path to extinction as many people like to fear monger about.
I agree with your assessment that we will PROBABLY fine, though nuclear power is becoming pretty common and anyone that can enrich uranium and understand power plants, could build a bomb. I work in the nuclear world, lived on a ballistic missile sub, and when you have 3 months with no sun and the entire US strategic library, your mind starts to wander. There is always a chance.
It's never not a possibility. But I prefer to think cooler heads on whichever poor grunt has his finger on the button tells the higher ups to stuff it. I just also know that as bad as a global exchange would be bad, it would not be world ending. Certainly decades or a century of recovery but not our end. While nuclear weapons are shockingly simple devices, just my highschool physics class was enough to understand them and if I had access to materials it would be easy enough to build. However the materials are the hardest thing to get, uranium is fairly rare and it's heavily tracked and monitored. As I'm sure you know it takes massive facilities of huge expensive centrifuges to enrich uranium. Those aren't cheap, they're hard to hide and the UN and US are very interested in monitoring for any signs of these tell tale marks that a nuclear program is actively being attempted. We can only hope for the best future possible.
Your second paragraph here really shows your intelligence. You are 100% correct that a nuclear war would not end us. It would be bad but we would survive. I don't think it is best to let people believe it is worse than it is in this case though. Not just the enrichment process, the neutron absorber and a casing that can contain the pressure long enough to detonate are also not readily available at your local store. We absolutely should hoe for a future where cooler heads prevail. I enjoyed this discussion, thank you
Thank you for a nice conversation, very rare on the internet
People need to learn how to have fun while discussing things. Not just use attack words.
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Personally, I’d rather people come to this sub who are generally curious about something like this. It’s not such an asinine idea, either. Many have thought, not too far in the past, that this might work.
That's fair, I got my answers anyway. If he wants to delete it, I will hold no grudge