Posted on 09/30/2025 8:36:05 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Get your safety helmets early.
Send Rosie to it.
And Bill Gates.
Potential massive fragmentation of a near earth object.
Sounds like a good plan to me.
That ‘Three Body Problem’ rears it’s ugly head............
If you ‘nuke’ an asteroid, where will all those shattered pieces go?................
Some of the fragments that are ejected tangentially to earths orbit will likely be threats themselves when the earth passes through that space one year later.
Although, I expect the experts who propose this would suggest that the fragments will be too small to cause serious damage
Instead of a nuke, how about a solar sail attached to the thing. Six years of the slight push away from us should be enough.
What could go wrong?
They will enter the moon's gravitational pull and form a big, beautiful ring system that will be visible from Earth.
If I understand physics correctly, A nuke displaces the atmosphere at supersonic speeds and that is what causes the damage. Would a nuke in space where there is no atmosphere even do damage to the asteroid?
You are right that there would be no atmosphere to heat and expand. The material in the spacecraft would vaporize and create some blast effect and some asteroid material would vaporize and create blast. I am not sure this would be better than a kinetic strike.
Bruce Willis is too old and infirm now to lead the mission; it’s doomed to failure.
I would bet that someone is calculating how to nudge the orbit enough to capture the asteroid into a high earth orbit.
Similar calculations have been performed before to use lunar or Earth gravity assists to slow and modify the trajectory.
In high Earth orbit mining can begin. Typical asteroid composition can be of several useful types. Nickel-iron asteroids also contain platinum group metals as well. Carbonaceous chondrites have volatiles such as water. Water can be converted to hydrogen and oxygen for propellants.
How could the orbit be modified? This asteroid is small enough that a chemical rocket can probably be adequate for the tiny change in trajectory.
There is also a type of propulsion called a mass driver. A mass driver would use small amounts of the surface material of the asteroid to eject electromagnetically. The material is accelerated using a short electromagnetic track and is solar powered. The thrust is small but adequate to modify the orbit.
This asteroid could be a way to test mining and utilizing extraterrestrial material.
A threat can be converted to an opportunity.
Ad astra
Translation: Scientists say, "give us more money!"
Are these the same scientists that told us we had 12 years to live if we didn’t stop driving cars - 13 years ago?
We will first have to factor in what the aliens on 31/Atlas have in store for us...
This is good. We need lots of target practice runs to prepare for the “big one”.
I do hope they know what they are doing. Hippocrates: “First do no harm”.
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