Russia Plans To Divert Asteroid 305
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the Bruce-Willis-approved dept.
from the Bruce-Willis-approved dept.
CyberDong writes "Roscosmos, Russia's Federal Space Agency, will start working on a project to save planet Earth from a possible collision with Asteroid Apophis, which may happen in 2036. NASA specialists believe that the collision is extremely unlikely. Russian specialists will choose the strategy and then invite the world's leading space agencies to join the project."
The one thing that'll guarantee an Asteroid strike (Score:5, Interesting)
Is the ability to divert asteroids.
Wonderful weapon, just massive blast damage and no residual radiation.
Uhhhh, excuse me but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Roscosmos, Russia's Federal Space Agency, will start working on a project to save planet Earth from a possible collision with Asteroid Apophis
This would be the same people who just tried to engineer a winter without snow in Russia, with mixed results [time.com].
Now they're going to try diverting an asteroid.
What could go wrong?
Re:Uhhhh, excuse me but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Heh. If it makes you feel any better, orbital dynamics are easier to figure out than the weather since they're pretty much non-chaotic. The error mostly comes from error in measurements of its position over time, so the longer we watch it the more accurate we get, until we get forecasts like a 1-in-300,000 chance of catastrophic meteor impact in 26 years. A bit better than weather prediction, eh? By the time any interceptor actually got close, we'd know the actual trajectory very well. If we were really sure by then it wouldn't hit earth, then we could take as much time as we wanted on the asteroid-diversion mission.
If in the unlikely event that it looked like it probably would hit earth, at least there'd be something up there to try diverting it. :p
Re:Sounds Fishy (Score:1, Interesting)
If we don't know enough to estimate the likelihood of impact, then we don't know enough about the trajectory to even consider screwing with it.
In ten years, we will have better information on this asteroid, and a better idea of whether it's going to hit or not. If it's going to hit, we want to have some means of deflecting it. If we want to have some means of deflecting it in ten years, we should start developing it now.
Re:Sounds Fishy (Score:4, Interesting)
Please note that Apophis is nowhere near large enough to "threaten all life".
Wreck a city? It can do that.
Make a spectular boom? That too.
But it's not a threat to "all life". Or even most life. Or even a little bit of life (unless it lands on the last four white rhinos in the wild).
Re:The one thing that'll guarantee an Asteroid str (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that we can arrange it. I would definitely prefer to have my tax dollar spent making something cool like that happen, rather than spend it on bailouts or diverting it directly into the pockets of the health insurance industry.
Re:Sounds Fishy (Score:3, Interesting)
Be careful what you say there... you might just debunk the nuclear boogie man. An Apophis sized impact is said to be equivalent to about 1000 H-bombs.
Re:If it's not broken, why are you fixing it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because Apophis is under observation we know exactly what the risk is.
Aren't some of them a bit unpredictable due to the ejection of matter (eg steam) as they get closer to the sun? Or maybe i've been reading too much SciFi.
The real risks come from objects we are not currently observing.
That's certainly true. Wasn't there one that came pretty close recently that we only noticed as it was leaving?
Don't worry about asteroids... (Score:2, Interesting)
Something bumps into another thing in the oort cloud, and sends a comet towards Earth. We'll see it at about the orbit of Saturn (probably found by an amateur), and we'll have about two years -max- to kiss our asses goodbye.
Re:If it's not broken, why are you fixing it? (Score:1, Interesting)
A little game theory... (Score:4, Interesting)
NO, there is a bigger chance to be hit by an asteroid than to win a lottery.
Is there really? Estimates of this based on historical data would have us hit by an asteroid big enough to make dinosaurs go extinct once every... 70 million years (or so, look it up if you want correct numbers). So it is perhaps about as likely to be hit by one in a given year as a given ticket winning the lottery (depending on how big a lottery). However, if we assume that such an asteroid would kill 7 billion people if it did hit, we can also say that catastrophic asteroid impact kills on average 100 people a year... not a highly impressive number, probably less people than are killed by flying debris http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0EY86At7qs [youtube.com] each year, but still pretty high considering that there is hardly any historical record of a man being killed by an asteroid impact.