Destroying Asteroids

MolaKule

MolaKule

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I'm glad they postulating the next big one. Nature always wins in the macro picture! To think otherwise; well? Remember the Law of Unintended Consequences. No disrespect intended to the OP. He is smarter than me....
 
MolaKule said:
A new study by LLNL suggests Nuking NEO's.

"The hydro simulation in Spheral provided the basis for the analysis: 1 Megaton at a few meters standoff distance from a 100-meter diameter asteroid (with Bennu shape)..."

www.universetoday.com

You Can Blow Up an Asteroid Just a few Months Before it Hits Earth and Prevent 99% of the Damage

What if an asteroid heads right for us and we don't have enough advance warning to deflect it? Could we just blow it up? A new study says "probably."
www.universetoday.com www.universetoday.com
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Topic took me back to the early 80's Atari we had.
 
No point in destroying a dangerous asteroid when you can just deflect it away from Earth's path. Also blowing up a large asteroid in space will also create many more asteroids that may not pose to threat to Earth but would have to be tracked in the future.
 
Jake_J said:
No point in destroying a dangerous asteroid when you can just deflect it away from Earth's path. Also blowing up a large asteroid in space will also create many more asteroids that may not pose to threat to Earth but would have to be tracked in the future.
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"This study doesn’t change the fact that kinetic impacts are preferred when it comes to asteroid deflection. The further away an asteroid is when it’s detected, the better. A smaller kinetic impactor is enough. But this study is aimed at late-time small bodies. There isn’t enough time to launch a kinetic impactor with enough mass if we don’t have enough lead time."
 
Hey what a coincidence. Apparently there is a launch next month to test the concept of striking an asteroid with a missile. This is from the Washington post.

915D96E7-1604-43A8-9232-0DE03ED477B7.jpg
 
BMWTurboDzl said:
So a nuke would generate a pressure wave in the vacuum of space?
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Some interesting background info:

A 1 megaton thermonuclear device (actually a fission-fusion device) has an yield of 4.18^14 Joules of energy. Such a high energy density leads to temperatures of tens of millions of degrees. This radiation transport is initially faster than any hydrodynamic or shock wave that would be affected in air. But in space we do not have air to create a massive shock wave.

In an air blast, about 2.7^14 Joules of this energy is transferred to the air resulting in a massive overpressure wave of greater than 1,000,000 psi in the nearfield. That is, in an air blast about 65% of the available energy is "attenuated" or used up by the atmosphere in creating the shockwave.

In space, all of this energy will be transferred to the asteroid. Since the asteroid is thermally speaking a blackbody (or grey body), a large amount of energy will be absorbed by the asteroid and the temperature of the asteroid will increase significantly and very fast.

Asteroids are not dry bodies but have entrapped gasses and moisture so if a huge amount of energy is transferred to the asteroid quickly, it will literally blow itself apart. The higher the bomb yield, the greater the amount of particles blasted off, but the resulting size of particles will be smaller, becoming small meteorites if they do enter our atmosphere.

So if an asteroid is discovered too close to the earth too soon, this may be the only way to avoid a possible catastrophe.
 
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MolaKule said:
Some interesting background info:

A 1 megaton thermonuclear device (actually a fission-fusion device) has an yield of 4.18^14 Joules of energy. Such a high energy density leads to temperatures of tens of millions of degrees. This radiation transport is initially faster than any hydrodynamic or shock wave that would be affected in air. But in space we do not have air to create a massive shock wave.

In an air blast, about 2.7^14 Joules of this energy is transferred to the air resulting in a massive overpressure wave of greater than 1,000,000 psi in the nearfield. That is, in an air blast about 65% of the available energy is "attenuated" or used up by the atmosphere in creating the shockwave.

In space, all of this energy will be transferred to the asteroid. Since the asteroid is thermally speaking a blackbody (or grey body), a large amount of energy will be absorbed by the asteroid and the temperature of the asteroid will increase significantly and very fast.

Asteroids are not dry bodies but have entrapped gasses and moisture so if a huge amount of energy is transferred to the asteroid quickly, it will literally blow itself apart. The higher the bomb yield, the greater the amount of particles blasted off, but the resulting size of particles will be smaller, becoming small meteorites if they do enter our atmosphere.

So if an asteroid is discovered too close to the earth too soon, this may be the only way to avoid a possible catastrophe.
Click to expand...
great point. I'm satisfied with that answer.
 
If a nuclear bomb is detonated in space where does all the energy go? It must start traveling, and in all directions. The sun is billions of fusion reactions happening all the time, what’s up with that and how does that change the planets orbits? All I know is the sun emits radiation. If an asteroid is anywhere near a star it is receiving heat. Our little bombs are no match for star power. Just some questions probably obvious to many.

Using hunch science I guess our little bombs aren’t going to do a thing of consequence to a massive rock. It will be interesting to see what happens to the 1/2 mile size one that has enough gravity to hold a 500 lb moon in orbit. That was very interesting to know about the little moon. The center of the asteroid has to be very hot from gravity I would think, just like the earth only on a small scale.
 
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