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To Nuke an Asteroid, How Powerful a Bomb Do You Need?
Space.com ^
| March 14, 2018 07:40am ET
| Mike Wall,
Posted on 03/14/2018 6:18:52 AM PDT by BenLurkin
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Three mega-tons is a pretty big bomb, yes?
1
posted on
03/14/2018 6:18:52 AM PDT
by
BenLurkin
To: BenLurkin
Wouldn’t it be better to nudge it into a safer trajectory?
2
posted on
03/14/2018 6:21:17 AM PDT
by
airborne
(I don't always scream at the TV but when I do it's hockey playoffs season!)
To: BenLurkin
No bomb. Blasting it into pieces makes it much more difficult to keep track of the pieces and to predict where they will fall.
3
posted on
03/14/2018 6:22:00 AM PDT
by
I want the USA back
(Media deliberately and intentionally chooses to lie, with full awareness and knowledge.)
To: airborne
4
posted on
03/14/2018 6:22:09 AM PDT
by
BenLurkin
(The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
To: BenLurkin
5
posted on
03/14/2018 6:22:54 AM PDT
by
rktman
(Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
To: BenLurkin
They're flying around in a (relative) vacuum so there is no opposing pressure to an explosion .... I think all you really have to do is FRACK the sumbitch.
Tiny little pieces expanding out and away from the point of detonation.
6
posted on
03/14/2018 6:23:03 AM PDT
by
knarf
(I say things that are true, I have no proof, but they're true)
To: I want the USA back
Apparently the plan is to vaporize it. Hence the need for such a large yield.
7
posted on
03/14/2018 6:24:05 AM PDT
by
BenLurkin
(The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
To: BenLurkin
Seems like it would be a lot cheaper just to attach a small rocket to change the rock’s orbit..............................
8
posted on
03/14/2018 6:31:02 AM PDT
by
Red Badger
(The people who call Trump a tyrant are the same people who want the president to confiscate weapons.)
To: I want the USA back
The idea is you’re blasting it precisely because ALL OF IT is heading straight for you.
Better to blast it into smithereens, and put up with a few fragments maybe striking you instead.
9
posted on
03/14/2018 6:32:07 AM PDT
by
ctdonath2
(The Red Queen wasn't kidding.)
To: rktman
Bruce Willis was in Armageddon about destroying a comet headed for Earth. Space Cowboys was about a Russian satellite called Ikon that whose orbit was decaying.
10
posted on
03/14/2018 6:32:28 AM PDT
by
rjsimmon
(The Tree of Liberty Thirsts)
To: BenLurkin
Don’t you need Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones?
If not, maybe just have Chuck Norris roundhouse kick it back?
11
posted on
03/14/2018 6:36:57 AM PDT
by
freedumb2003
(obozo took 8 years to try to destroy us. Trump took 1 to rebuild us. MAGA!!)
To: BenLurkin
A bomb powerful enough to eliminate New Jersey should do the trick.
I see what I did there.
12
posted on
03/14/2018 6:38:34 AM PDT
by
Celerity
To: Celerity
3 megaton would make a mess of it.
And some of Philadelphia as well.
13
posted on
03/14/2018 6:40:17 AM PDT
by
BenLurkin
(The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
To: BenLurkin
It depends on the size of the asteroid.
14
posted on
03/14/2018 6:40:46 AM PDT
by
WayneS
(An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. - Winston Churchill.)
To: BenLurkin
The whole idea is nuts.
If God wants to smite us, He ain’t gonna miss.
15
posted on
03/14/2018 6:42:38 AM PDT
by
G Larry
(There is no great virtue in bargaining with the Devil)
To: BenLurkin
You don't need to vaporize it, you just need to break it up into small enough pieces that it burns up in the atmosphere.
If you hit it with a 1-metric-tonne steel penetrator, going at 30 km/sec, the kinetic energy would be
0.5 * 1000 * 300002 = 4.5 * 1011 joules, which is about 100 tons of TNT
While not of nuclear magnitude, the shock wave from the penetrator would likely shatter the rock better than an explosion at the surface of the rock.
16
posted on
03/14/2018 6:47:25 AM PDT
by
PapaBear3625
(Big governent is attractive to those who think that THEY will be in control of it.)
To: BenLurkin
You don’t need a big bomb. Given the size of most asteroids, a small nuke in the 10 kT range would be enough to “nudge” the asteroid to a new orbit that avoids the Earth.
17
posted on
03/14/2018 6:50:14 AM PDT
by
RayChuang88
(FairTax: America's Economic Cure)
To: BenLurkin
Anything smaller than a bus will heat and break up on entry. It may make a noise like the Russian one a couple of years ago, but not much more.
So all we would need to do is create pieces, not dust.
I doubt we’ll ever do it.
18
posted on
03/14/2018 6:50:32 AM PDT
by
lurk
To: BenLurkin
Do explosives even work in oxygen deficient atmospheres?
19
posted on
03/14/2018 6:50:40 AM PDT
by
BobinIL
To: rjsimmon
20
posted on
03/14/2018 6:51:25 AM PDT
by
rktman
(Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?)
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