Jenesis on 25/2/2007 at 16:02
I, for one, am against all this talk of humanity using lasers and nukes to try to make my 53rd birthday less exciting. Also, we can now stop worrying about Unix falling over in 2038.
zombe on 25/2/2007 at 19:22
Quote Posted by st.patrick
Option 1: WE R DAID D00D
Option 2: We lose some satellites n shit, CIA + KGB + weather reporters etc. are BUST, possibly radioactive rainfall
Option 3: Not as shitty as 1 cos there ain't no Ubertsunami but a dozen smaller ones (kinda like 2004)
I'd go for 2
P.S.: Optional solution: Let's launch SD into orbit, he'll crush the rock between his MASSIVE THIGHS like nothing
Not so sure about that.
what we have:
1) 1 impact area. nuclear winter. sure, most will die - but we are not dinos, we got FIRE!
2) no idea how bad it is ... astronomers say it is likely the worst outcome. haven't found any solid data about it tho.
3) dozen impact areas. nuclear winter. that sounds horrible.
my quess would be (best to worst) 1 3 2 ... not sure about 2.
"We lose some satellites" - not only that ... any presence in space for us would be highly problematic. Too much shit flying around.
Renzatic on 25/2/2007 at 19:56
Apophis is too small to bring about any horrendous environmental changes. A worst case scenario would be it landing in the ocean, where the resulting tsunamis would effect the coastlines of multiple countries. If it were to hit land, the impact would be roughly equivalent to the Krakatoa eruption.
So we won't be seeing any nuclear winters or mass extinctions. At worse, we'd have a few economically fucked countries and alot of pretty sunsets.
jimjack on 26/2/2007 at 05:00
The most recent large asteroid to hit was in 1908, a 100 metre asteroid exploded over a Siberian forest causing massive fires. What are the odds of it not hitting the oceans.
Now for some orbit simulation
(
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=99942) http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=99942
Obviously there are some great minds thinking up ways to protect this planet (I even read they considered painting the asteroid with a reflective surface so that sun will drive it away) but the question is, do we have the time and money to build it in a few years. The problem is, there is no plan to stop an asteroid hitting earth. If we wait till we have a problem it will be too late to fix it. Unless NASA has crew trained on altering asteroids in the works. The UN will take responsibility for global threat even though they have no likely knowledge of space..stuff. So they will demand that the US spend millions of dollers and take over the project. A bunch of scientist will want to get some funding so they can build some gravity machine or other.
When odds are quoted its never thought in the positive. 45 000 to 1 chance it will miss and only one chance it will hit are good odds.
and thats all i have to say about that. thank you proffessor oblivious.
