NASA Plans Visit to Asteroid on Collision Course With Earth

NASA Plans Visit to Asteroid on Collision Course With Earth

www.foxnews.com

There's a mountain-size asteroid on a potential collision course with Earth, and NASA plans to pay it a visit.

The asteroid 1999 RQ36 made headlines last week with the announcement that the space rock could hit our planet in 2182. But a handful of scientists have had their eyes on this asteroid since 2007, planning a sample-return mission designed to help us better predict—and avoid—impact hazards.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Not something I need to worry about in my lifetime, or my children's lifetimes, but rather my grandchildren's.

The story talks about the research needed to protect Earth from a global killer. Something we do need to concern ourselves about. If it happened once, it will happen again.

How exactly do you stop something so massive? Armageddon and Deep Impact showed some methods, but they seem more based on Hollywood box office sales than on actual science. Anyway, I thought this was an interesting find.

www.foxnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

with current '"technology" i dont believe it is possible for us stopping anything like that imo, but who knows what will happen in the next hundred years

In 172 years the earth would be in a different position, it is possible that it would miss the earth, or the moon could be in its path, or any number of things.

A lot could happen to the trajectory of the object in 172 years, it could collide with another object throwing it in another directions, it could collide with another object, and drag the other object with it along its current trajectory, etc.

Though 172 years is a bit off, it is interesting to think of the implications of such an object hurtling toward earth.

I wonder what an object that size if hitting the moon in direct path to us, would do to the moons orbit? Would the moon continue to move away from the earth, would it instead start moving towards the earth, or would it lock it into position with the moon neither moving away from the earth or towards the earth. Would it cause the moons rotation habit to change and no longer be tidal locked with earth?

If it missed the earth, would it cause gravitational pull on earth as it passed causing tidal waves and earth quakes?

It will be interesting to see the findings of the mission, if this mission does happen.

reply to post by AlienCarnage


lots of great questions. all out comes would have a large inpact of the earth and everyday life

i think this is all just speculation anyway, nobody can predict if and when an event like this may happen or what affects it would have, all we can do is make educated guesses ...which are just that..guesses

i think we would only know if it was definately going to hit us far too late for us to do anything about it although any type of research in to asteroids and comets can only be beneficial so the findings will be interesting yet i dont believe they will help at all in the event of a pending collision

moosevernel

I'm going to go eat something and calm down...

Eaten and edited ahh.

[edit on 9-8-2010 by Big Raging Loner]

reply to post by AlienCarnage


I am with you on this one. I think there are way to many factors in play over the amount of time that could radically change this collision path. There are too many unknowns in the greater picture. Solar activity, gravitational forces, floating bodies...any of which could change just a minute bit and cause a massive course change over that amount of time being forcast.

I dont want to dismiss it though, because of the possibility of reincarnation might put me right back in this place when this event is scheduled to happen.

reply to post by wheresthetruth


it may be a moot point anyway according to the thousands of predictions between now and then we may already be all wiped from the earth... so this asteroid is just another of the many things that could happen at any time to destroy us all....

Originally posted by moosevernel
i think this is all just speculation anyway, nobody can predict if and when an event like this may happen or what affects it would have, all we can do is make educated guesses ...which are just that..guesses

i think we would only know if it was definately going to hit us far too late for us to do anything about it although any type of research in to asteroids and comets can only be beneficial so the findings will be interesting yet i dont believe they will help at all in the event of a pending collision

moosevernel

You are wrong, they can use trigonometry and calculus to tell its
flight path.

They accurate predicted the impact area of a recent asteroid
impact in Africa.

How this could be blocked is slow it down, speed it up, or
turn it off course.

I am personally a big fan of aim it at the sun or jupiter.

How do we do this with it being so huge ?

To slow it down a sail like device could create drag on it.

To speed it up would require a LOT of energy so its not likely.

To turn it would require energy or gravity.

Given enough warning you can use a gravity tractor.

news.nationalgeographic.com...

We have ways to do this, but we'd rather spend trillions on war,
religion, sports, and egoism.

So if it is not averted I am not surprised.

reply to post by Ex_MislTech


i concede that maybe we could predict if and when it will hit..

as for slowing it down adding a sail would do nothing in the vaccum of space as there is no air to catch the sails and slow it down.... am i wrong..?

[edit on 9-8-2010 by moosevernel]

reply to post by TLomon


I think our society's advance in technology will be the most important aspect of this situation.

172 years ago we did not have computers, we did not have cars, telephones, faxes, phones, etc., etc. Following Moore's Law, we can rest assured that we will possess the necessary technology to mitigate such a dilemma in 172 years.

[edit on 9-8-2010 by misinformational]

That is the beauty of Astro physics and it's language of mathematics they can approximate (using computers) within a reasonable margin of error, where, based upon the Earth's orbit and that of the said asteroid they might intersect in the future.

That's how this particular asteroid cam under scrutiny in the first place. They place all of these known orbits into their computer algorithms and look for potential collisions within a certain range of distance measured in inter-planetary distances.

An orbit of any planetary body is very similar to a wave with high and low frequency oscillations. In essence a sinusoidal wave where it's speed or velocity is dependent upon it's own mass as well as the gravitational effects of other larger planetary systems where it speeds up and slows down when encountering them.

These orbital speeds and their relative orbits don't change much if at all as the other planetary orbits are relatively constant.

So this equation is used in the computer over time to project their position in the galaxy at any given point in time.

This is apparently why NASA is looking to visit this particular Asteroid.

It's number apparently came up as potentially crossing Earth's orbit !

The idea is to slightly alter it's orbit vs trying to destroy it which wouldn't solve the problem but would instead worsen it by spreading its debris over a larger area similar to that of a shotgun blast.

But by deflecting or nudging the asteroids orbit slightly now, they can also project by how much it would alter the potential collision course with earth in the future.

By bouncing radio waves off of the planets and asteroids, hence the term radio telescope, they can also assess their progress for the next several decades as to whether it's actually working or not.

Originally posted by moosevernel
reply to post by Ex_MislTech

 

i concede that maybe we could predict if and when it will hit..

as for slowing it down adding a sail would do nothing in the vaccum of space as there is no air to catch the sails and slow it down.... am i wrong..?

[edit on 9-8-2010 by moosevernel]

Different kind of sail...

en.wikipedia.org...

NASA has successfully tested deployment technologies on small scale sails in vacuum chambers.[22] On February 4, 1993, Znamya 2, a 20-meter wide aluminized-mylar reflector, was successfully tested from the Russian Mir space station. Although the deployment test was successful, the experiment only demonstrated the deployment, not propulsion. A second test, Znamaya 2.5, failed to deploy properly.

This is a gift from the universe, all those minerals being delivered free to our door. Send up a automated mining rig, and have it seperated into its useful bits by the time it all arrives.

I am a fan of simple. I like the "nudge."

.5 degree up and .5 degree to the side - over even a few years the degree change would be cumulative.

Plasma rocket with landers. Plasma rocket ejects landers a year away from asteroid. Maneuver landers to intersect and land (crash) on the asteroid. If necessary have lander move to position on asteroid.

Landers drill in. I know everyone LOVES their nuclear bomb idea. But I think a simple solar sail that can be collapsed would be suffiient and more elegant.

Multiple landers allow for attrition, but also for course corrections or all out failure of a few sails.

172 years is enough time to work with.

You don't need to aim it AT something. You just need to move it enough to have it miss. We are a small planet in a very big universe.