The delta-v required to make a 2-kilometer rock in an Earth-crossing orbit hit the sun is almost certainly going to be beyond any human scale.
The delta-v required to make it miss the Earth, if it's really on a collision course with Earth in 2019, is probably far beyond our capabilities.
Would deflecting it to a shorter orbit and slowing it have the effect of causing it to be drwan in by the Suns gravity over time?
The delta-v required to make it miss the Earth, if it's really on a collision course with Earth in 2019, is probably far beyond our capabilities.
Why wouldn't a large explosion at an anlge not change its course and orbit?
"The error in our knowledge of where NT7 will be on 1 February 2019 is large, several tens of millions of kms," he said.Given that the earth's radius is only 4000 miles (less than 6000km), the ratio of its cross section to the area within which the data suggest the nearest-approach to occur is less than 36 million divided by the square of 20 million. I reckon the odds against a collision are at least 10 million to one.
sounds about right--as Newspaper headlines go . . .
But as a practical matter nothing can be done until such time, if any, as we know the direction from the earth's center to the closest approach. And nothing should be done until the uncertainty is reduced to less than one million klicks. If there's still a possible problem it would be time to start working on a launch against it. You'd want to launch two, for some redundancy.
You wouldn't want to launch at all if that direction was so easily determined that you knew the collision hazzard was zero, but you'd want them to arrive as soon as you knew the direction of the closest approach. And if you were truly sure of that direction, and that you were pushing to increase the miss distance, you'd about as well to use the nukes once they arrived on target. You aren't gonna deflect it by very much, so you have to push ASAP and you have to push in the right direction.
It could be true that you can't possibly prevent the collision, because by the time you can know which way to push the asteroid is too close. But that depends on the mass of the asteroid and on how centered on the earth the asteroid is targeted. I guess you time your launch, if any, on your best guess as to how soon you have to know the direction to be able to do any good. And you decide which way to deflect only as you have the opportunity to attempt to do so.