Wednesday
Rusty Schweikert, a member of the Apollo 9 crew, spoke at the Saturday International Space Development Conference luncheon. Rusty founded the B612 Foundation to make people aware of the risk of asteroid impacts to our planet and to make sure something is done about it.
As it turns out, we are at this moment facing a slight risk on April 13, 2036 from 99942 Apophis if it threads a tiny keyhole in space on an earlier pass. The track of the possible impact points touches down in Siberia, winds parallel to the Pacific coasts of Canada, the United States and Mexico; passes over a few South American cities and crosses the South Atlantic before rising above the Earth's surface near Africa. A Pacific hit would cause a tsunami many times larger than the one which hit Indonesia. It would cause an estimated $400 billion dollars damage and a large death toll on the US West Coast.
He told us an acceleration of a mere micron per second squared, applied over 200 days, could move the asteroid out of the keyhole. This would require international agreement because moving the impact point changes it from an act of God to an act of man as the possible impact point slowly crosses multiple national borders before leaving the Earth's surface.
There is a very small chance Apophis will thread the needle and thus a large chance we will 'get away' with doing nothing. It does represent a wake up call because there WILL be a damaging asteroid strike within a relatively short time frame. If the the Tunguska strike had happened 6 hours later it would have struck in Central Europe. Next time we may not be so lucky.
And yes, Apophis was named for the baddie in Stargate who was in turn named for an Eqyptian snake god, the enemy of Ra, who personified darkness, evil and chaos.
Anyone who refers to an "acceleration" of one micron per second can safely be ignored.
Posted by Freeman at May 10, 2006 07:35 PM
But whose error is it? And is it of physics or of typing?
But well spotted. I just skipped over it, assuming the addition of another "per second". Is that rather like the triangle of "Paris in the the spring"?
And on the whole theme of asteroid protection, I'm very very interested. I expect to still be here in 2036, and would like to know which here is best.
And if asteroid orbit perturbation is not viable, how about the accuracy of prediction of ground zero? That is followed by the possibility of mass movement of tens (or even hundreds) of millions of people?! Or would that be one of those "political" problems, in which the people are better off not knowing, because (in such an unfortunate event) we would all be better off with a quick world population reduction (say, so the rest could share out the food for longer).
And what is the arrival rate of big asteroids that we do not spot much in advance? Is the observation system good enough? If not, what should we do about it, and how much should we spend on it?
Anthropogenic global warming pales to insignificance, even if it does exist in any material form.
Get yourself a good cause!!!
Best regards
Posted by Nigel Sedgwick at May 10, 2006 08:30 PM
Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Compared with a one-way mission to anywhere in the solar system in the same timescale (next post) the individual risk is probably insignificant.
Based on the outcome of the Phoenix biosphere experiment, the chance of successfully implanting a one-way mission must be close to zero anytime soon. Oh no, we forgot the vitamin B12 -- ah well, we'll just have to eat one another.
Posted by Freeman at May 10, 2006 10:00 PM
freeman
i think most us us assumed it was a micron per second per second, as acceleration is normally measured in ms-2 (or as specified micrometers/s/s).
Im not sure the probability of a asteroed strike is, but wouldnt a well aimed nuke take it off a impact trajectory very easily? a megaton blast would move quite a large chunk of rock of course i would have thought.
At the acceleration of 1 micrometre/second/second the asteroid would move 150000km of course. If the blast could create a velocity of 10 m/s perpendiclar to travel, it would create more then that effect over 200days
Posted by fh at May 10, 2006 10:52 PM
Oh, don't be such a twit Freeman. The last 10 days has been a major exercise in sleep deprivation. All the articles were written in one go and dumped on line in stolen moments between meetings.
If you don't like the information I provided and cannot accept the typos, don't read it. Corrections are welcome; snideness can bog off.
Posted by Dale Amon at May 11, 2006 02:49 AM
It is not a matter of if an asteroid large enough to cause serious problems strikes, its a matter of when. And the only way for us (as a species, civilisation, whatever) to survive it is to not be here, or to be more spread out. The universe is a big place. It'd take us quite a while to over-populate it and strip-mine it.
If we're wiped out by a strike whos going to remember all the great things that we've achieved? Whos going to care about your favourite LP, painting, or book? No-one. We won't even have been a footnote in the story of the universe. We deserve better.
We need to get our fingers out of asses and ears, forget our petty little squabbles over god and politics and make a concerted effort to get of this deathtrap of a rock.
Posted by mandrill at May 11, 2006 11:00 AM
About hitting a comet or asteroid, or landing on one for that matter, it has already been done on Feb14,2001.
The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission was launched in 1996 and the NEAR lander alit on asteroid Eros433. Lots of cool stuff at www.space.com.
Sems that it shouldn't be that much of a stretch from this to hit or land a nuke on a comet or asteroid to change it's course. But as usual it will be the USA, Brits, maybe Russkis who will do the heavy lifting on this, while the French will find a way to traingulate.
Posted by Uain at May 12, 2006 03:13 AM
