EldwinSchrodinger @ Fight for believe or fight to save humanity?
I think, it should be time we humans look into the universe as a bigger threat to humanity and all life on Earth. We all know, most of us; that the universe has a wide variety and countless numbers of asteroids looming the vast vacuum. Asteroids as tiny as a speck of dust, or even as large as texas, perhaps more? And these stuff are travelling at insanely quick. Imagine a .30 caliber travelling at a speed of x when you shoot it from a rifle, in comparison, an asteroid travels 60 times of x. which is, 60 times the speed of a moving bullet. Thats how fast it travels. And if one were to hit earth, There'll be a huge consequence in that.
I know there many ideas out there which could possibly save us from such threat. But obviously there are some which are not ethical or it would only cause more harm. Here's an example.
In movies such as Armageddon where a group of guys simply rocket out to space, land on the asteroid and nuke it into half and that splits it into 2 which would deflect away from earth. But.. that doesn't seemed to be the case. Normal explosives won't blow a chunk of rock into 2 equal piece, instead, it would be blowing it up into smaller rocks which might inturn cause more harm to the earth.
Asteroids which are as big as Singapore and if it were to collide with earth. Here's what would happen.
#1) The minute it enters the exosphere, it starts burning at intense heat such that if you see it coming towards you like a meteor shower, you'll get fried on the spot.
#2) The Huge tidal wave if it hits the ocean
#3) A massive earthquake which would be felt worldwide, and the explosion would hurl massive amount earth crust into the atmosphere, blocking off all light and you'll see a series of burning huge chunks of rocks like rockets over the skies, soon, the heat would completely destroy the ozone layer, causing harm to most living organisms.
#4) the ocean's ph value would drop to 1 as sulphuric based substance from the earth get into contact with the ocean.
#5) those who lived through the nightmare would find the earth back to prehistory where its totally inhabitable and it just be like an alien planet.
Most of us knows that apophis would be the next thing we should be wary of and whether it would strike earth or not. However, there are plans where by instead of blowing up the asteroids, we would send a spacecraft towards the incoming asteroid, with much of the craft's gravitational full, deflect the asteroid's path away from Earth. possibly avoiding "judgment day". Till then, its still a theory and not confirmed to be the best solution to save ourselves from such threat.
Labels: Fate Of Mankind
EldwinSchrodinger @ The threat of killer space rocks
A recent study showed that the U.S. and China are the nations most vulnerable to a devastating meteorite strike. With funding uncertain, astronomers are struggling to contain the threat of a civilization-ending galactic visitor.
What are scientists doing to detect and deflect the meteorites that could send us the way of the dinosaurs?
There are between one and two million near-Earth objects (NEOs) -- chunks of space rock whose orbits may pass within 30 million miles of Earth -- that pose a significant impact threat to the planet.
Of the 4,535 NEOs detected and tracked (704 of which are real whoppers), none are on a definite collision course, but there could be millions more, many of them potentially lethal, lurking in the cosmos.
Who's watching?
Most spotting is done by half a dozen optical telescopes in the U.S., Italy, Japan and Australia, coordinated by such programs as the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project, a NASA-funded collaboration between MIT's Lincoln Laboratory and the U.S. Air Force tasked solely with the detection and cataloging of potential NEOs. Amateur astronomers worldwide also aid the effort. Collectively, the programs discover a new NEO every few days.
What's the plan?
Since 1998, NASA has funded Spaceguard, a consortium of observatories working to find 90 percent of the half-mile-plus NEOs by 2008; the group has found three quarters of the predicted 1,100 NEOs in this size class. Spaceguard's next step is to find 90 percent of NEOs measuring 460 feet or larger -- potentially up to 12,000 objects -- by 2020, but funding has not been secured. Larger wide-field scopes should come online in Hawaii, Arizona and Chile in the next decade, greatly speeding detection.
The hot list
NASA's NEO office maintains a watch list of about 140 especially high-risk asteroids. The baddest asteroid so far is 820-foot-wide 99942 Apophis. Discovered in 2004, it briefly presented a 1-in-38 chance of collision on April 13, 2029. As more data helped scientists to pinpoint its orbit, Apophis has since been downgraded to 1 in 45,000 in 2036 -- still the biggest collision threat in the known universe.
A handful of scientists, both at NASA and the privately funded B612 Foundation, have proposed various protocols for diverting or destroying a collision-course NEO. None currently have funding, although the asteroid fly-by mission Dawn will launch this month.
And NASA has looked into using existing rocket and spacecraft technology to land an astronaut on an asteroid, a move that, if successful, could help hone future deflection strategies. Here, a few plans on how to save the planet.
Nuke it
We already have the bombs, but the risk is that an explosion could turn one killer asteroid into many smaller killer asteroids, thrown into unpredictable trajectories -- and radioactive.
Smack it
A spacecraft would ram the object, altering its orbit or shattering it. Elegant, but could multiply the threats as with the bomb scenario above.
Lean on it
A craft would push or pull the object. Not sideways -- too energy-intensive -- but backward or forward to slow it down or speed it up. A few pounds of force applied over several months would alter a medium-size body's rate of travel such that it would miss hitting Earth by four or five minutes and thousands of miles. An asteroid tugboat would attach to a NEO and deliver a speed-altering nudge.
A gravity tractor would hover close to a NEO and use mutual gravitational attraction to divert it ever so slightly. A solar sail would move a NEO with the subtle pressure of light from the sun.Labels: Fate Of Mankind
EldwinSchrodinger @ we're not safe on Earth!
apart from global warming and other disasters that might hinder the human survival on earth. i'll also need to include that we're also prone to external threats. i'm not referring to "alien domination" but more of a nearby sun. i would like to encourage humans to go up to space and learn to adapt to it. i'm not sure how long we're able to leave. its better we start to know our heavens first before its too late.
we're surrounded by many supergiants within our galaxies and in any instance, one could just result in a stellar explosions. that we cant hope as thats how stars end their life. harmful gamma rays will damage our ozone and harm us just like the effects of the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima.
what we can hope is when a star were to collapse. neither its cores are facing us directly. as i've mention earlier. (the lines in white) which are called gamma ray burst. mainly ejected from the inner cores of the collapsing star has its highest intensity of gamma rays. they're are triggered when the core of a massive star collapses to form either a black hole or a neutron star. traveling at very near light speed. shock waves within the jets generate the actual gamma rays, and the star itself blows apart as a supernova of either type Ib or Ic (meaning the supernova's spectrum lacks hydrogen, presumably because the outer hydrogen-rich layers were blown off in the star's wind prior to the explosion)
Labels: Fate Of Mankind
