Vocal Voices

Treat them well or they could get painful.

NASA has just sent a spacecraft up to nudge a small one into a new orbit. It is an experiment to see if there are ways of keeping Earth safe from some of the larger ones floating about.

Nobody knows how many big ones are out there nor where they are in the Asteroid belt, but they do know one could hit at some time because it has happened in the past. They are concerned. Mind you the size of a craft capable of moving a 1km diameter rock (mass extinction size) is boggling. Apparently nukes don't work.

In order for a nuke to work it would have to penetrate and then detonate. Even then, without careful modelling, there would be no guarantee that it would not just break up into parts and batter the earth over a larger area.

This experiment is, as far as I can work out, to determine the cumulative effects of mass and inertia on an asteroid so that they can then extrapolate to larger masses and velocity, thus inertia. Think something like a starship refuelled in orbit and sending something like 1,000 tons in total (the whole ship becomes mass and inertia), barelling in at around 500,000 mph.

Or something in those orders. Numbers are a bit vague. Nobody has ever refuelled a rocket that size in orbit then boosted it out of orbit with that amount of fuel. But the above figures are nearly 6mt. However that is also not quite the same. A 6mt nuke going off on the surface will emit its energy in all directions. This 6mt would be focused and directed. Potentially having a deflecting force massively higher than a nuke on its own.

The theory is sound. The application boggles the mind. It is not beyond us, just beyond what we want to afford I think.

Yes, the nuke idea was discounted many moons ago, but it did make for a couple of decent films.

The nudge at least offers some form of control over the modified trajectory. How it could be scaled up to deflect something big enough to do massive damage, even worldwide, is beyond me.

I do, however, wonder how the new orbit of the moon around its parent will affect the pairs' travels within the asteroid belt. Every action has a reaction....

I guess you have to hope their computers are good enough.