Armageddon? Fail Safe in the 17 year works - HIT or MISS

[shazstar]

Hey guys, this not quite Stargate related but a matter of great interest to all humankind I would imagine. I'm sure that most of you have heard about the recently discovered Asteroid that is posing a threat to the Earth in around 18 years time. Here is a quick rundown;

Asteroid 2002 NT7 was first detected on July 18th from the Linnear observatory in New Mexico. NASA has been tracking it since then. The estimated velocity is 108 000 km/h, and diameter of 2 km. Preliminary calculations place the asteroid in Earth's impact zone in 17 years time, possible impact on February 1st 2019. In the coming weeks, more refined calculations and observations will be made to determine its trajactory.

Although the media is painting this as Armageddon in the making, it is more likely, that in all probability this will turn out to be near miss encounter.

However, 2002 NT7 has been deemed as the most dangerous object ever observed in Space, and if it was to hit the Earth, would cause some heavy duty damage.

Questions? Comments? What do you guys think? We have all seen the movies and the TV shows and of course Stargate, but entirely realistically, what do you think, given this much notice, would be the best course of action to take?

 

[PTeppic]

Thinking out loud, without much depth:

a) forget about it - totally. It will, in all probability, miss. Since worrying will make us ill and maybe even seriously.

b) write to your MP, senator, governor, etc. demanding something be done

c) become a world-class person and develop the strategy with what to do with potentially 1/2 the worlds population.

d) kiss your (bottom) goodbye and live life to the full for 18 years knowing you are probably going to die

 

[shazstar]

hehehe I like the last one.

I agree with you that it will most probably miss. Make for a damn good light show though.....hope I'm in a good place to see it.

If it were a definite hit though, do you think we'd go for the nukes straight up, or wait until its closer?

 

[lene morissette]

thanks for the info! The first I heard of it was from my mom and she didn't know what the hell it was about! Maybe governments might start taking a bigger interest in sci-fi since it may provide some suggestions ( we all know governments are **** at avoiding mass panic, making plans and they generally tend to lean towards God if they don't have another option!) Let's hope there's no real life 'Deep Impact'!

 

[webmouse]

Originally posted by shazstar
Although the media is painting this as Armageddon in the making, it is more likely, that in all probability this will turn out to be near miss encounter.

From our POV there is no such thing as a "near miss" -- it is, in fact, a "near hit"

 

[PTeppic]

So - another question to think about:

where would the best (least damaging) and worst (most damaging) place be for this thing to hit - if it does?

I would guess South Africa or South America would be "best", in so far as it is quite a long way from the really heavily dense places such as south-east asia.

But, wherever I think of, there is either a heavily populated area in close land proximity, or there is a huge amount of water nearby to create tidal waves that could travel to such places. So, for example, the middle of the Australian outback would not be good (for thew Australian's for a start!) but also it would drown much of the Asian coast, tens or even hundreds of miles inland.

In fact, is there anywhere that won't lead to a literal decimation of the human population, or worse?

 

[shazstar]

hehe thanks Webmouse good point!

Originally posted by PTeppic
So - another question to think about:

where would the best (least damaging) and worst (most damaging) place be for this thing to hit - if it does?

I would guess South Africa or South America would be "best", in so far as it is quite a long way from the really heavily dense places such as south-east asia.

But, wherever I think of, there is either a heavily populated area in close land proximity, or there is a huge amount of water nearby to create tidal waves that could travel to such places. So, for example, the middle of the Australian outback would not be good (for thew Australian's for a start!) but also it would drown much of the Asian coast, tens or even hundreds of miles inland.

Speaking as an Australian, and on behalf of my country, AGREED!

In fact, is there anywhere that won't lead to a literal decimation of the human population, or worse?

Factors I think should be considered include,

- Equatorially, where the asteroid hits is significat of the global ramifications. If the Asteroid was to hit Earth closer to the poles it could cause a wobble in our orbit, causing disastrous climatic and geographical change.

Spoiler

Think of the very first 'tollan' episode, season 1

If it hit closer to the equator however, it is less likely to cause massive global devastation to the same extent

- if the impact occured oceanographically we have tidal waves. BIG ones. Travelling fast at long distances wiping out coastal areas. For example a northern hemisphere hit, Pacific Ocean would most likely affect Canada, the USA, Alaska, Asia (russia through to Japan and the phillipines, and Australia. Virtually all that is still standing is Europ, the Middle East and Africa, possible some of South America. And, Antarctica.

- Alternatively, if it hit in the Atlantic, bye bye USA, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Greenland, and South America......and we have Australia (maybe) Eastern Asia left.

- Impact on a continent, however is slightly unpredictable depending on the continent. Obviously there would be a massive loss of human life. But how far it would spread is up for debate.

- Ultimately, anywhere it hits, will be flattened. The immediate radius will aso be obliterated, while the external radius is definetly under some major damage. Dust will settle and block the suns visible light and some UV radiation, playing havoc with ecosystems. So in other words if there is some flora or any living organisms left, it won't be for too long. This will most likely last (I could go for Deep Impact here and say 2 years, but who knows?) a period of years.

- Building underground cities in various countries around the world will most likely not prolong or preserve human life, with tectonic plate movement, the cities will be very unstable.

- If it came to prevention, and we aimed at diverting the asteroid, drilling holes for nukes won't do it. The asteroid would be blown apart but not into tiny little meteors. Rocks the sizes buildings will be travelling faster and impact harder.

- It has been suggested that the best method to divert the asteroids path is to position a series of nuclear bombs a specified distance away and set them off with the fall out not breaking the atom only changing its trajectory. This is again, dodgy, and certainly not fail safe.

- So it seems there is no preferable impact zone, and no concrete prevention. What could we do if impact was certain?

 

[webmouse]

Most of human history has been spent with some idea that this planet is "special" and therefore not subject to the same forces and fates as the rest of the galaxy, and that with all our technology, we know next to nothing about all those flying rocks in the asteroid belt, nor have we done much to figure out their orbits and trajectories.

Only with the collision of the Shoemaker-Levy comet into Jupiter did scientists really notice that if it can happen there, it can happen here.

We could use a stargate, it seems. Now if our science fact could just catch up to our science fiction . . .

 

[PTeppic]

I would suggest that it is the general populace who were thinking how special we were in the universe...

The scientists have known for a long time that we do get asteroids hitting us every day/week - they are just very small. But, perhaps the last 15-25 years, with things like Tunguska, and various other impact events (Yucatan, Australia etc.), they have increasdinsly realised, and this has dispersed into the population at large, that impacts of ALL sizes are happening and it is only a matter of the distribution graph over time determining when the next one is...

 

[Stacy]

This is what the astronomy magazine Sky and Telescope has to say about 2002 NT7:

New Asteroid Threat

Astronomers are paying especially close attention to a newly discovered asteroid, which they've calculated to have a higher probability of striking Earth than any known body. Designated 2002 NT7, the wayward object was first spotted on July 9th by the LINEAR telescope in New Mexico, so its orbit is still uncertain. Future observations -- or its discovery on archived sky images - will refine the chance of a collision. But it's already clear that on Friday, February 1, 2019, this 2-kilometer-wide asteroid will pass quite close to our planet. According to NASA's orbital specialists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the impact probability is about 1 in 250,000, whereas Italian dynamicists put the odds nearer to 1 in 90,000. Both teams agree that the threat from 2002 NT7
warrants a 1 on the 1-to-10 Torino impact-hazard scale. Were it to actually strike, it would deliver the kinetic-energy equivalent of 12 to14 million megatons of TNT, enough to decimate much (or most) of a continent.

Considering what the odds for this to happen are, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

 

[Ko'or Oragahn]

Will I be able to touch it when it'll pass above my head ?

 

[PTeppic]

Only if you live a long time!

The BBC's news website has updated this story: apparently the observations over the last couple of days have confirmed that this asteroid will NOT collide with the Earth in 2017.... but they can't quite rule it out yet for 2060 (though it is unlikely). Presumably subsequent passes (the orbit is every couple of years, but the intersection with the Earth is obviously less) could still reveal a collision in a few dozen decades, or even centuries.

The story also claims that astronomers are hot under the collar about the hyped media response and future news release practices.

 

[System Lord Gypsy]

After reading this thread my mind went back to a few years ago and a story in some of the british tabloids about an asteroid that was due to hit earth in about 2023. This was a front page story.

Funnilly enough this story was printed at exactly the same time as Deep Impact, Armageddon and all those movies were coming out. Once the movies came out the story was never heard of again. Tabloid sensationalism coming together with Hollywood to advertise the movies in a big way? I'll leave it to you to decide.

Gypsy

 

[Svarog]

If it hit anywhere the tidal waves would zoom right across the world. If it hit Africa tidal waves caused by the impact would destroy Asia and America. Well at least India and the East Coast of N/S America. Also being Australian though i agree this is the best place to be if it hits Africa. The East coast-the populated area with Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne would be protected by the dry inner west. Perth might be flooded by wouldn't take the full brunt as it's about 30k up a river, i can't remember the name though. Darwin might be protected a little by the indonesian archipelago. The great Australian bight would protect Adelaide, though whether that is good or bad remains to be seen (j/k). Tasmania would most likely be sunk, to the great joy of the (surviving) mainlanders.

For Asia India would most likely be hit by tidal waves, no matter where in Africa it hits, thought te extent would differ. However the northern part of the Indonesian archipelago would be protected a little by India. However Indonesia itself would be quite badly damaged.

In America Brazil would take a lot of damage, with a situation similar to India. If it hit the southern end of Africa the US and Canada would only feel stronger waves, nothing as major as the other stuff.

However the earthquakes likely to be produced by the collision would be astronomical. Probably bigger than anything we've encountered. I'm not sure how big they'd be but here's my guess

Firstly bye bye large African savanna animals. Then the rest of the world would feel the effects. I'm assuming the quake produced would be more powerful than the mysterious explosion in Siberia or Krakatoa. Both were felt right around the world, though the damage wasn't great. There would be a shadow zone somewhere, between certain angles i was meant to learn for my geology test but didn't. My guess is it would be near Australia and America. The compression or longitudinal waves caused would penetrate deep into the earth and out the other side, relatively unscathed, and destroy whatever is there. In Africa's case it would be Asia. The transverse waves would sweep along the surface north, east, west and south. With an effect similar the the tidal waves-but faster.

So if it hits Africa...

Good points-we just eradicated all poverty there
no more pouching for a long time
Australia survived
no need to protect the Amazon any longer

bad points
Africa is quite highly populated in some areas.
India is hit by tidal waves-the highest population density in the world. The rest of Asia faces minor earthquakes likely to kill millions worldwide, not including Africa. America would also feel these quakes, though not as much tidal waves.

So all in all Africa isn't the best place to hit. Why not just deflect it into the moon? I'm not always right, despite what i sometimes claim so i'd be happy for people to correct me.

 

[PTeppic]

My question to the above would be, how bad will the tidal waves be, if the impact is 500+/1000+ miles from the open sea? And therefore, does that change the overall catastrophe?

Yes, a crash in mid-southern Siberia may not be "good", but if it hits land we get Earthquakes... but will the resulting much-reduced tidal waves be as damaging as if the asteroid hit the middle of the Pacific? I would guess not.

 

[Svarog]

Well obviously the tidal waves would be weaker than ones closer to the sea. Depending on how strong the quake is that causes the waves, how far the waves have to go and how much the waves have to spread out.

The strength of the wave would depend on the power of the trigger, in this case the quake caused by the meteor. If it hit Africa then the waves going towards india would have less space to diffract into, therefore each meter of wave would be more powerful. The waves going to America would have a nice wide open America to diffract into so each meter of wave that hits the coast would do less damage, spreading it out. The wave would destroy more of the coast but in terms of human lives it would do less damage at each major city it hits since power that would have hit the city in a small sea would be diverted to elsewhere along the coast, where hopefully it would only destroy a low populated area. So overall in terms of human lives it would make a difference.

 

[PTeppic]

So in theory then, the best place would be in the centre of a large land-mass, the maximum distance from ANY ocean?

 

[Svarog]

I don't want to turn into an all-knowing Lysdexia (no offense buddy), so i'm gonna say it again, i'm not seismologist/ armageddon expert so i don't know.

I'm guessing the best place to hit is the moon where noone gets hurt. Perhaps if it hit just north of Antartica so it doesn't melt the ice caps but is far-away enough from any populated land masses. But either way the resulting dust cloud would kill us all anyway. That's what happened to the dinosaurs

 

[shazstar]

Originally posted by Svarog

Perhaps if it hit just north of Antartica so it doesn't melt the ice caps but is far-away enough from any populated land masses. But either way the resulting dust cloud would kill us all anyway. That's what happened to the dinosaurs

If the asteroid hit in a polar region, depending on impact velocity and angle trajectory are we are still possibly looking at orbital fluctuation? Is it possible for a big enough asteroid to cause orbital 'wobbles' and cause an imbalance in natural occuring phenomena, resulting in global environmental disruptions, such as Volcanic activity, earthquakes, haywire weather, storms, tidal activity and iniating another ice age? I can remember (ages ago) reading an excerpt from a scientific journel where this was theorised as the cause for dinosaur extinction and the following ice ages.

 

[Svarog]

Not if another asteroid were to hit the exact opposite side of the earth