[Jonty30]

The asteroid probably weighs millions of tons, if not a few billion.

My prediction is that a fly body checking me has a greater chance of changing my direction than this asteroid.

[Evil Slayer]

It will take one of these to deflect it's path. lol

The landing party encounters a strange obelisk

"The Paradise Syndrome" - a third season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, and was broadcast October 4, 1968. It is episode #58, production #58

Kirk becomes himself again and flicks his communicator open to contact the ship. As soon as it makes a noise and Kirk says "Kirk to Enterprise", the door to the obelisk is opened. Spock goes inside and repairs the deflector beam. The device targets the asteroid and successfully diverts it away from the planet just minutes before collision. The storm quickly subsides, and later in the lodge where Kirk and Miramanee had lived, McCoy tells Kirk she suffered internal injuries and will not survive. Moments later, Miramanee dies in Kirk's arms.

[agere_contra]

The asteroid is in free fall, unchecked by frictional forces. Any mass that impacts on it and/or accretes to it will have an effect (though perhaps not a measurable one).

Also: Apophis will be moving immense distances along an elliptical orbit before it gets close to Earth again. A one mm difference in its trajectory now might well make a significant difference in 20 years - significant enough to miss us. Or steer the rock into us.

[RipSawyer]

It will have an effect though probably amazingly minute but the tiniest change could make a major difference in the position of the asteroid 24 years from now when they will probably succeed in making it HIT Earth.

[Mr. Lucky]

Back when hard sciences were still taught in school, wouldn’t a college freshman with a slide rule have been able to calculate exactly how much a rocket of a known mass and velocity would deflect an asteroid of a known mass and velocity?

[ArrogantBustard]

My prediction is that a fly body checking me has a greater chance of changing my direction than this asteroid.

m₁v₁+m₂v₂ = (m₁ + m₂)V

Every single time (adjust for relativity as needed).

Particularly in space, the resulting orbital change doesn't have to be large to be detected.

[ArrogantBustard]

My prediction is that a fly body checking me has a greater chance of changing my direction than this asteroid.

m₁v₁+m₂v₂ = (m₁ + m₂)V

Every single time (adjust for relativity as needed).

Particularly in space, the resulting orbital change doesn't have to be large to be detected.

[anymouse]

A far better solution would be to land electro-magnetic mass drivers, robotic excavators and a small nuclear power plant (to power the former items) on the asteroid to not only change the asteroids trajectory, but send the valuable excavated material to a catcher/refiner facility orbiting in one of the Earth-Moon Lagrange points. The asteroid could eventually be steered and slowed into that same Earth-Moon Lagrange point to then be directly mined and hollowed out to make a large habitable artificial moon. Keep doing this until you have a fleet of manned spacecraft capable of traveling out to larger asteroids to continue the process of mining and building.