Simulation of Close Asteroid Fly-By 148
c0mpliant writes "NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have released a simulation of the path of an asteroid, named Apophis, that will come very close to Earth in 2029 — the closest predicted approach since humans have monitored for such heavenly bodies. The asteroid caused a bit of a scare when astronomers first announced that it would enter Earth's neighborhood some time in the future. However, since that announcement in 2004, more recent calculations have put the odds of collision at 1 in 250,000."
So if it hits... (Score:2, Funny)
That means we won the global armageddon lottery?
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Local lotto here is 1 in 14,000,000.
Let's see, become a millionaire before planet gets whacked? Good thing I'm not a betting man.
In case of slashdotting (Score:5, Funny)
* O - Earth
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| ---- Asteroid
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Re:In case of slashdotting (Score:5, Funny)
Scientists report that the Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields. Further research and government grants are necessary to determine whether the Apophisites are playing American Football or that odd metric football where you use your feet.
Re:In case of slashdotting (Score:5, Funny)
I'm curious to know how many Volkswagen Beetles we'd need to collide with a two-and-a-half football fields asteroid to change its trajectory.
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That depends on how many times the speed of sound the Volkswagen beetles are going...
Is 'speed of sound' an obscure enough unit (when referring to something in a vacuum) or is furlongs/fortnight required? Maybe conversion to 'force(s) of a mack truck' to imply speed and mass? I am certain we can clear this up somehow...
Re:In case of slashdotting (Score:4, Funny)
It's all documented in the Library of Congress. In fact, a lot of information is contained in the Library of Congress. Ten Terabytes: [techtarget.com] and if each bit was a "0" or "1" in 12-point font, laid end-to-end, it would stretch to the Apophis asteroid and back nine times (at its closest point to Earth).
Seriously, what's this "1 in 250,000" chance of hitting the Earth? It's only going to pass once, and it'll either hit or miss. So it's one in 2.
That's why it's important for lottery money to go toward education. These scientists can't calculate probabilities!
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It's all documented in the Library of Congress. In fact, a lot of information is contained in the Library of Congress. Ten Terabytes: [techtarget.com] and if each bit was a "0" or "1" in 12-point font, laid end-to-end, it would stretch to the Apophis asteroid and back nine times (at its closest point to Earth).
Seriously, what's this "1 in 250,000" chance of hitting the Earth? It's only going to pass once, and it'll either hit or miss. So it's one in 2.
That's why it's important for lottery money to go toward education. These scientists can't calculate probabilities!
Ironic then, that as I win the lottery every other time I play (the odds being 1:2) the education fund will no doubt go into the red delivering my payouts... Take that, book learnin'!
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Ironic then, that as I win the lottery every other time I play (the odds being 1:2) the education fund will no doubt go into the red delivering my payouts... Take that, book learnin'!
Duh! That's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard! I mean, why aren't you skipping every other lottery drawing?
Re:In case of slashdotting (Score:4, Funny)
I've been trying that for years now, but I must be skipping the wrong ones...I'm only picking every other loser. :-(
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Word!
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There is still some uncertainty in the calculations due to imperfect observations, the effects of gravity, and the solar wind, for example. The trajectory shown in the video is very close to the most likely one, but there are still some factors that could change from the expected parameters and so change the actual path.
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What? The GP was a joke, you're just ignorant.
The one in 250,000 are the odds that our measurements of the asteroid's path are as far off as they would have to be for it to hit us. That is what it means when they say a 1 in 250,000 chance of impact.
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I'm curious to know how many Volkswagen Beetles we'd need to collide with a two-and-a-half football fields asteroid to change its trajectory.
Not enough!
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You mean American Handegg?
... but for funding... (Score:2)
(X) - NASA funding
^
| ---- JPL
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Danger... or opportunity? (Score:2)
These rocks are high in minerals which are very useful. Who'se with me, capturing this thing, and turning it into a gigantic orbiting factory?
Re:Danger... or opportunity? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Danger... or opportunity? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Danger... or opportunity? (Score:5, Funny)
Q, stop posting on Slashdot. Or is the Continuum that boring these days?
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Re:Danger... or opportunity? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmm . . . a giant harpoon, tethered by a long nanotube to the Earth. We could nail that asteroid, like Captain Ahab did to Moby Dick. We could travel back and forth on a space elevator. The more alcohol I drink, the better this idea sounds!
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Not only is it a good idea, but we could even hire the whalers on the moon. They carry harpoons.
BUT! (Score:2)
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Do you have any idea how much energy would be required to capture it?
You'd be better off putting some sort of automatic mining robot on it and having it launch just the extracted material on the next pass by earth (though I have no idea how close it comes on future orbits). Well aside from us not having the tech for that yet.
Actually I'm pretty sure that's a standard sci-fi technique. Send the big mining robot to the asteroid. It then starts processing the asteroid and ejects the waste material in order to
Re:Danger... or opportunity? (Score:4, Funny)
Actually I'm pretty sure that's a standard sci-fi technique. Send the big mining robot to the asteroid. It then starts processing the asteroid and ejects the waste material in order to produce thrust to head towards Earth (aiming for an orbit rather than a collision :).
Actually, the standard Sci-Fi technique is:
- Send big mining robot.
- Big mining robot passes through exotic magnetic field and develops conscience.
- Big mining robot invades Earth; possibly to mine it.
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I read a slightly different sub-genre of sci-fi than you :)
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- Big mining robot passes through exotic field.
- Big mining robot reengineers cute 22 year old female human body
- Big mining robot takes up new career as stripper?
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Actually, the standard Sci-Fi technique is: - Send big mining robot. - Big mining robot passes through exotic magnetic field and develops conscience. - Big mining robot invades Earth; possibly to mine it.
Don't you think that a big mining robot with a conscience would have more respect for personal property?
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Actually, the standard Sci-Fi technique is:
- Send big mining robot.
- Big mining robot passes through exotic magnetic field and develops conscience.
- Big mining robot invades Earth; possibly to mine it.
Or the big mining robot asks to learn of that emotion we humans call love. Possibly becomes turned on watching monster truck rallies, tries to woo Grave Digger.
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Given that they thought it might hit on the next pass (if it came close enough for the earths gravity to affect it this time) thrn i think that it should be easy for a robot to thrw up some rocks at the right time on the next pass and have them land on earth. (Bonus points if you can land them on somebody you don't like (Korea, Iran...)
You Pose An Excellent Question, "How Much?" (Score:2)
Re:You Pose An Excellent Question, "How Much?" (Score:5, Insightful)
And art deco was in the 20's and 30's.
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Thank god, more rocks on the moon. What a prize.
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Who'se with me, capturing this thing, and turning it into a gigantic orbiting factory?
I'm with you. Now all we need is to get someone on board who has access to a whole lot of bungee cords.
I could've sworn... (Score:3, Insightful)
relative risk (Score:3, Informative)
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But it is much more probable for the meteorite to kill us all than a succession of lightnings killing each and every human being.
And not just because after the first few thousand lightning hits we'd start thinking about hiding in caves.
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But it is much more probable for the meteorite to kill us all than a succession of lightnings killing each and every human being.
And not just because after the first few thousand lightning hits we'd start thinking about hiding in caves.
Not really, an assumed impact would 'only' kill millions. There would be no long-term climatic disaster to kill everyone.
Unless, of course, we try making a massive pile of the entire planet's nuclear weapons to cushion the impact...
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If this was a planet killer, though, I think the 1 in 250,000 isn't good enough odds; we'd have to weigh it against the entire future of everything on earth, including the potential galaxy-spanning empire that humans may someday evolve into.
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The same thing that happens to everything else.
Question (Score:1)
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The plan, as it stands, is to look at it very closely on the 2013 pass, which is expected to give enough accuracy to say with absolute certainty that it won't impact before 2070. If it emerges that the 2036 impact becomes more likely, rather than less, then the plan will be to give it a nudge somehow during a pass in the 2020s.
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Ok, effective certainty.
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Actually this pass (the 2029 close approach) is not a concern at all. The error brackets are brought in well enough that we know it will not impact the Earth, but will pass well within the GEO belt. What we don't know, and when the actual 1/250000 impact risk is, is the next pass, in 2036. If the asteroid passes through what is known as a 'gravitational keyhole' in 2029, the effect of Earth's gravity will actually swing the asteroid back around on an impact path in 2036.
Right now we can predict where Apo
Thank goodness (Score:1)
Good thing it ony 250,000 to 1. If it were 1,000,000 to 1, then we'd be doomed
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Where's The OTHER Simulation? (Score:1)
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Posted above, but here it is again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zvCUmeoHpw [youtube.com]
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And as above, no that is not a simulation of Apophis striking earth. Not even close. Stop it. If I had mod points, you'd get a -1 Microsoft Sales Rep Scare Tactics.
Of course Apophis is going to miss Earth in 2029 (Score:2, Funny)
we've had worse (Score:1, Interesting)
I think the asteroid that just missed us (was that last month?) came closer than this will.
the only difference is we didn't see it coming.
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If I remember correctly that one was very small, so that if it landed at all it would probably mess up someones house, but was far more likely to airburst and be completely unnoticed on the ground.
99942 Apophis, while not a 'planet-killer', is still big enough that it would cause massive regional destruction, probably 10 times more than the Tunguska event, which we were very fortunate to have happen in Siberia and not over a populated region. Also the danger doesn't come from this 2029 close approach, but
A dose of realism, before the plague of ignorance (Score:3, Informative)
I wish that someone would make a game of this... where you need to send up a vehicle, bump and asteroid and watch the change. Give us all a chance to crowd source the various "solutions". Learn just how friggin tricky this would be, how long it would take, how little effect we can have. All of this talk about "capturing this asteroid" on this thread alone is sad. The amount of energy in an asteroid's kinetics is astounding. This topic needs a dose of realism.
A POX on Bruce Wyllis!
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Additional computing power isn't really needed for this problem. JPL already has the Standard Dynamic Model they use to model all bodies in the solar system accurately, and the current hardware is perfectly capable of handling the problem.
What is needed to refine and understand the trajectory is more observations. Radar range and range-rate measurements, along with optical angle measurements are fed together to estimate the current position and velocity, and using estimation techniques you can estimate yo
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Ah. Probably the most useful thing, and the most computationally intensive, is going to be doing aerodynamics/fluids, whether for aeronautics research, reentry work, or planetary atmosphere science. Unfortunately, most CFD codes require a lot of talking back and forth between nodes, which isn't very good for a distributed computational network, since its bound to be communication limited. An alternative that works well for low-density flows (and thus has potential for modelling re-entry) is the Lattice B
Looks like our force field will save us (Score:3, Funny)
In that animation, the asteroid was apparently deflected by the earth's force field. Either that or I just don't understand what's going on. Can someone kindly explain what the video is showing?
Re:Looks like our force field will save us (Score:4, Informative)
That is the same as the relative positions of this simulation.
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Ah, I see what the video is showing now. "Keep your eye on the front of the car as you approach *and after you pass*" is what gave me a clue.
I think this can be classified as a video optical illusion. I watched it like 3 times and the asteroid looked like it bounced backwards and away to the left.
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In 2029 the asteroid 99942 Apophis will pass well within the GEO satellite belt (36,000 km), but will not impact the Earth. The video simulates this trajectory and as the Earth approaches for a few moments it appears that an impact is likely. However, this is an illusion where the Earth merely dominates the field of view and the in-plane relative velocity is much larger than the horizontal relative velocity.
To be clear, the orbit of the asteroid as it enters the Earth's sphere of influence is a very hig
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no, the asteroid is moving in a near ellipsoid perturbed by earths gravity.
I don't know why... (Score:2)
Impact the moon? (Score:2)
This is expected to come within our moon's orbit, right? So what are the odds of it impacting the moon? And if it were to do so, what would the impact do to the moon's orbit?
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It is certain not to hit the moon on this pass, just as its guaranteed not to hit the Earth. Uncertainty of the asteroid's position is within 10s of kilometers, more than enough to make sure theres no risk of that.
If it were to impact the moon, we can determine the relative Delta-V it would apply. The velocity of the asteroid relative to the Earth moon system upon entry is approximately 5.9 km/s, according the JPL NEO page, and has a mass of ~2.7e10 kg. The Moon is moving at ~1 km/s and has a mass of 7.3
Impact Simulations (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm surprised the original post didn't link to this article from Sandia National Labs [sandia.gov]. There is a pretty interesting analysis of what would actually happen if an asteroid did hit (complete with nifty graphics).
From the Sandia article:So what would happen during such an impact, really? According to the simulation, the impact would vaporize the asteroid, deform the ocean floor, and eject hundreds of cubic miles of superheated water vapor, melted rock, and other debris into the upper atmosphere and back into space. Much of the debris would then rain down over the world for the next several hours and also form a high global cloud, says David Crawford of Sandia's Computational Physics and Mechanics Department. The shock wave from the impact would level much of the New England region. The heat would incinerate cities and forests there instantaneously. The global cloud would then lower temperatures worldwide, and a global snowstorm likely would ensue and last several days to several weeks, initiating a "nuclear winter" that would create more hardships for earth's inhabitants.
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That doesn't sound as bad as I thought it could be. Up here in Canada our Winters last at least 6 months anyways. And I'm far enough in land that any ocean impacts likely won't flood me, or incinerate me.
I was afraid of some Earth Shattering Kaboom, that could Shatter the Earth. With a loud bang.
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Time to move up to Canada. Seriously, I would think it would depend on the size of the meteor. In the video I posted on a thread above, the inhabitants of the Earth don't fare so well.
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Now that is an understatement.
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Apophis? But I thought... (Score:2)
Why named "Apophis?" I thought SG-1 killed him off real good back in season four. What we've got to consider is whether the asteroid is in fact heavy with naquadah (which prohibits nuclear solutions). At least Sam Carter figured out that whole enlargement of the subspace bubble round the transport vessel -- barely got that asteroid to the other side of earth... We've got all the solutions we need, I figure.
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Actually, the discoverers claim that during the initial days when it was a 1/300 impact risk, a god of destruction seemed like a good name. However, it also turns out that they were SG-1 fans...
I'm not going to lose any sleep over this... (Score:2)
Yet another simulation (Score:2, Funny)
This is a genuine question. (Score:2)
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"measure the location of nearby space objects with fairly good accuracy"
That's one of the big sources of error. Any error in it's position now, however small, gets amplified the further you run the clock forward. There are also errors introduced because the prediction has to be done numerically, there being no known analytical solution to the laws of motion for more than two bodies.
Odds (Score:2)
You know, 1 in 250,000 is of course a very, very, very (very, very) low chance, but... it's still a not insignificant possibility. That's slightly (very, very, very, very, very slightly) scary.
Simulartions are boring (Score:2)
That's FRIDAY April 13, 2029 (Score:2)
... just to give the complete picture of this.
Direct link (Score:2)
How about we link directly to the simulation and dodge all the blog spam.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news146.html [nasa.gov]
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Show's been over for a while, this asteroid has been named Apophis for several years--those jokes are thoroughly played out by now.
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Your vish is my command:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zvCUmeoHpw [youtube.com]
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That's not even close to the same idea. That impact (while kind of neat to watch) is of a much larger object, looking to be several hundred miles wide (Ceres?). An asteroid the size of Apophis would create an incredible explosion and crater, but it would not be a life-ending event like in that video.
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I know, but he said booorring. Just thought I'd spice things up a little.
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How can you read the subject title of this post without hearing with the sound of Mr. Kruger's voice (at 2:40)? [youtube.com]
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No, it doesn't [nasa.gov]
However, the asteroid will not pass near the main belt of geosynchronous satellites in 2029, and the chance of a collision with a satellite is exceedingly remote.
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Even if the kid's non peer reviewed work were valid, that was calculating the impact risk on the pass AFTER the next one.
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Am I close to doing that right?
Pretty much. Apophis, at that distance, basically has the same gravitational pull as a can of soda at 10m away. Apophis would have to be about 230 meters away to have the same gravitational acceleration as the moon does.
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Stick a cigar in it. (Score:2)
Fly up there. Stick a Cigar on it, and light that cigar. Use the thrust from it to put it into a better orbit so that it can be mined.
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Actually, minimum energy to rendezvous is around these close approaches, but isn't terribly dependent on the actual distance to the Earth. In order to rendezvous with a minimum of propellant, you launch about 2 months before the close approach and rendezvous about 5 months afterwards. The rendezvous Delta-V using this intercept trajectory is around 3 km/s, instead of the nearly 6 km/s you'd require during the close approach. Whether you do it during this very close pass, or during further out ones in 201
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It's going a wee bit fast.