Posted on 12/09/2005 9:07:47 AM PST by emiller
LONDON — Scientists are monitoring the progress of a 390m-wide asteroid discovered last year that is potentially on a collision course with the planet, and are imploring governments to decide on a strategy for dealing with it.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has estimated that an impact from Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036, would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima.
Thousands of square kilometres would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere. In Egyptian myth, Apophis was the ancient spirit of evil and destruction, a demon that was determined to plunge the world into eternal darkness.
The experts fear that there is very little time left to decide.
(Excerpt) Read more at todayonline.com ...
Very true. The discovery of asteroids has generally been made by ground-based observers. Even some information as to what individual asteroids are made of has been tried from the ground. And Gaspra, Ida, Toutatis, and other large bodies have been mapped using radiotelecopes. But to get a sample (even without a sample return) requires an expedition to the surface. :')
Footfall. Is that the one where we are invaded by creatures that resemble Elephants? Who was the author?
Goodby!
And thanks for all the fish.
Thanks but is that the one with the Elephant looking aliens?
Yes, the 'fithp looked like baby elephants with tentacle-like trunks.
ANyway, do you folks agree something weird is going on?
Oh, I think most of us will agree with THAT!
Are you sure you don't work for the Aluminium Foil Cartel?
I keep noticing a spike in bauxite after posts like this.
Are you really sure you are one of US??
Thank you.
In 2025, land a couple nuclear-powered ion rockets on the surface and slowly push the asteroid into a different orbit.
It is really alla coming to mecca to get his monolith. Or pounding it into the ground.
Or, do a few small-sized nuclear explosions some distance away that would gently vaporize the surface and nudge it in the right direction without fragmenting it. However, making a small number of fragments would probably leave them all in non-colliding orbits.
I always had the idea that we could send spacecraft to the asteroid and deposit chemicals that, when mixed, would begin to dissolve it. Rather than blow it up, hit it every pass close to earth and dissolve it down bit by bit (bit by bit being relative, of course).
So we have 30 years or so to dissolve a 3,000 foot asteroid - if we can whittle it down 100 feet a year, or about 2 feet a day (which is a lot, but lets get people working on this), it will be the size of a baseball in 30 years.
Dissolve it with some kind of powerful chemical reaction.
"And I contribute time, money and expertise to expanding human knowledge and towards our ultimate survival in several other ways."
Care to elaborate?
There are some articles today indicating next week will be a period of high meteor shower activity.
No doubt, if not yet he soon will be. I love how his guests always seem to have some king of British accent and can spout the damnedest nonsense with the ring of authority.
eat, drink and be merry, because if we're still alive in 2030 we may die?
I read that book years ago and recommend it to others to this day.
The Planetary Report article from last summer, outlining the problem and explaining why we may need a mission to it in the next decade to determine if it is really a problem in time to prevent a disaster, is finally online here.
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