Nuke it, says Aussie scientist

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | July 25 2002

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An asteroid which could hit the Earth in 17 years time should be blown away with a nuclear weapon, an Australian astronomer said today.

If left untouched the asteroid could plummet to Earth, causing tidal waves and mayhem.

The best way to ensure it was diverted was to put a nuclear weapon beside it and blow it out of orbit, Stromlo Observatory astronomer Vince Ford said.

Scientists are still trying to determine whether the asteroid, known by NASA as 2002 NT7, will hit the Earth in 2019.

NASA says it is still too early to tell whether the remote possibility will become more likely.

Experts will have a clearer picture soon.

"As new observations come in, the situation will evolve in the next days and, as usual, either the probability associated with this object will go up somewhat, or, more probably, it will disappear," NASA said on its website.

Dr Ford said nudging it with a stockpiled nuclear weapon could help alleviate the problem for 1,000 years.

"That'd be the way to do it," Dr Ford told the Seven Network.

"Forget sending Brucie Willis up to drill into it and blow it into small bits, that's unlikely to work.

"No what you do is put a nuke along side the thing and blow it sideways...(a) use for some of the stockpile."

Dr Ford's solution echoes the plot of the movie Armageddon in which Bruce Willis starred as an oil driller who landed on an Earth-bound asteroid the size of Texas to insert nuclear charges to blow it up.

The movie had an 18-day time frame, but there was much more time to deal with 2002 NT7, Dr Ford said.

"You've got 17 years to think of how to do it but basically what you do is rendezvous with it, blow something alongside it, kick it off onto a different track," he said.

2002 NT7 is a chunk of rock four kilometres across.

"Now if that hits remember you've not just got the 20 kilometres per second movement of the asteroid, you've got the Earth coming the other way at 30km per second," Dr Ford said.

"You drop a chunk of iron travelling at 50km per second onto anything, you've got troubles.

"Let's say it hit anywhere in Europe, the whole of Europe would be well, in deep trouble.”

"Worst thing of course is if it hit the ocean.

"If this thing hit the Pacific Ocean anywhere, the whole of the Pacific rim would go, tidal waves, whatever.

"It might be the only time it's good to live in Canberra, in fact."

AAP

[dead]

"Let's say it hit anywhere in Europe, the whole of Europe would be well, in deep trouble.”

As if that would be news.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

I think this is a great idea. It would be the ultimate skeet shoot. I love it.

[cardinal4]

As if that would be news.

LOL!!! I love FR!

[Cyber Liberty]

"As if that would be news."

As if that would be a bad thing....

[TomServo]

"If this thing hit the Pacific Ocean anywhere, the whole of the Pacific rim would go, tidal waves, whatever.

This must be the guy they mentioned in 'Armageddon' who got a 'C' in astrophysics.

[DETAILER]

Let's put the Hubble between it and the sun and use the Hubble as a magnifying glass - heat the thing up till it melts, disintegrates, or pops like a rock in a campfire.

HA ha.....

[stainlessbanner]

You drop a chunk of iron travelling at 50km per second onto anything, you've got troubles.

Big Trouble from Outer Space!

[cardinal4]

Let's put the Hubble Xlinton between it and the sun and use the Hubble Xlinton as a magnifying glass buffer - heat the thing up till it melts, disintegrates, or pops like a rock in a campfire. Take out the asteroid,too.

[KellyAdmirer]

"If this thing hit the Pacific Ocean anywhere, the whole of the Pacific rim would go, tidal waves, whatever.

Tidal waves???????? Ummm, don't think so, Doc. The article says he is an astronomer (hey, I have a telescope too), but what is he a doctor of, podiatry?

By the way, just what we need, not one big asteroid coming our way, but millions of bits of busted-up, radioactive meteor surrounded by a cloud of radioactivity, headed straight for our vicinity.

Back to the drawing board, "Dr." Ford.

[KarlInOhio]

Forget the nukes. I have a lower cost way to plant explosives on it.

1. Israeli government declares the asteroid to be part of Israel and puts "settlements" on it. These settlements would look like Hollywood front-only buildings.
2. Arafat declares that the asteroid is part of the Palestinian homeland under Zionist occupation.
3. Suicide bomber line up to take care of asteroid problem (and suicide bomber problem, too).

[wcbtinman]

If the govt is involved, they'll probably nudge it into the moon.

[Charles Martel]

What, we don't have one of these...

asteroid deflector thingies, that automatically zap encroaching space rocks...

Like that? Well, I *am* depressed. ;-)

[Salgak]

Mind you, the 2019 date is when its' orbit intersects Earth's orbit and we're close at that time. It may or may not hit, but was discovered only a week or three ago. Further observation will tell, in a matter of months, if it's likely to hit, or, more likely, may pass within a few million miles or so. . .

If we find it's likely to hit, THEN we need to send up a mission of some sort ASAP: the earlier we start diverting it, the easier the job will be. You do NOT want to blow it up without changing the orbit: that just changes it from getting hit by a cannonball to getting hit by a shotgun blast, so to speak. Think about the NYC scenes from "Armageddon", on a worldwide basis. . .

[Grig]

How big of an asteroid would it take to knock the moon into a decaying orbit?

[boris]

See Barney Oliver's 1970s report, "Project Icarus".

[boris]

"How big of an asteroid would it take to knock the moon into a decaying orbit?"

Wrong question.

Need assumptions. From what direction? How fast? Etc.

Essentially 'impossible'.

Fuggedaboudit. A big rock hitting Earth is much more likely.

[Salgak]

Let's see. . . rock is roughly 4KM in diameter. Assume a mostly iron composition: Iron is 7874 kg/m^3. Assume roughly spherical shape: that gives you roughly 270 billion cubic meters of iron. The math gives you a bit over 2 billion metric tons of iron with a total relative velocity difference of roughly 50 meters a second. That's 5.25 quintillion joules of energy. That's a BIG bang. . . .

[vannrox]

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[Dead Dog]

How big of an asteroid would it take to knock the moon into a decaying orbit?

I would guess one about the size it took to break the moon from Earth. That would be on the order of real big.

Orbital decay is a relative term, even geo stationary will eventually decay...if the solar systems exists long enough.

[Paradox]

Lets send up all the envirowhacko luddites to the asteroid. Tell them to use "natural" methods, like, they can get together and PUSH REAL HARD.