11-12-2017, 04:41 AM | #231 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!
The Gravity Tractor is a more complex and fiddly method, but doesn't depend on the composition of the asteroid.
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11-12-2017, 06:40 AM | #232 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!
That's cinematic nonsense actually. Interceptions are very, very fiddly - any change whatsoever and it misses. Certainly any change big enough to alter the period of the orbit means it misses by a lot. The Earth is a moving target - about 8 minutes delay in crossing its orbit is enough to go from just grazing the leading edge to missing the trailing one.
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11-12-2017, 06:46 AM | #233 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!
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11-12-2017, 11:10 AM | #234 |
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: New York, NY
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Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!
From what has been said, it actually seems too easy to deflect an orbiting asteroid like I had described. Any nudge will do, multiple attempts, lots of lead time, etc.
What if the asteroid is really big, like moon size or something? The bigger it is, the harder to nudge, correct? And even breaking it up, or if its some rubble pack, will be too big. For added cinematic drama, could its pass-bys have effects on Earth, like mass tidal waves? Maybe the first time it just caused some increased waves, but the next time will cause mass tidal waves. This could give added impetus to doing something, but also another problem to deal with. Each nation will want to prep for their own tidal effects, as opposed to the joint operation to save the world. Interestingly, the USSR would be relatively less effected, and thus more interested in saving the world, especially as compared to rich, seaside nations such as U.S., U.K., and Japan. |
11-12-2017, 12:16 PM | #235 | |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!
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Realistically, under the present conditions in both of these requirements, scenarios where we detect something that we can't do anything about are still pretty likely. |
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11-12-2017, 12:39 PM | #236 | ||
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!
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There are probably still a fair few unspotted 100-yard to 1 mile asteroids, but we're getting better at spotting them. They could well be challenging to deflect, but their impacts on Earth are very rare. Ones smaller than that don't pose a risk to human civilisation as a whole, although they can make quite a mess of a large area.
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11-12-2017, 06:19 PM | #237 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!
Another problem occurs if the object is coming at an extreme angle to the ecliptic plane. The majority of astronomers looking for asteroids look on the ecliptic plane.
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11-12-2017, 11:01 PM | #238 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!
If you aren't orbiting in the ecliptic plane, the odds you can hit Earth go down *drastically*. In the plane, any asteroid that has a perihelion less than 1 AU and an aphelion greater than 1 AU intersects the orbit of the Earth twice each orbit, the only moments it has a chance of hitting Earth. An asteroid out of the ecliptic doesn't do that. Unless its perihelion (or aphelion) is exactly 1 AU, it can never hit the Earth at all - when it is at the right distance at 1 AU it will be well above or below the Earth's orbit.
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11-12-2017, 11:06 PM | #239 |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!
Unlikely isn't impossible. And it's a great handwave for otherwise close parallels. Just enough for jumpers to get a hint nervous when visiting adjacent realities.
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11-13-2017, 08:17 AM | #240 |
Join Date: Aug 2008
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Re: Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!
How much damage would one of these hypothetical rocks do if it hit the moon? I could easily see asteroid trackers dismissing it for a while as a near miss only to realize later it would impact Luna.
Luna being a much smaller target of course, but debris kicked up from the moon would stick close to Earth for a long time I would think. Close to Earth of course means risk of impact... |
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