Greetings all:
A 10 meter astroid would be similar in size to the original size of the Ash
Creek meteorite, or about the size but not mass of the International Space
Station. Its most valuable use would be as a projectile to to deflect an 100
meter or larger NEO. If capture failed and it hit the earth it would most
likely cause no more damage than the headlines preaching doom!
Being able to capture it and use it to deflect a larger NEO would be our
best defence against a larger extinction event astroid.
Cheers
Steve Dunklee
--- On Mon, 8/29/11, Sterling K. Webb <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: Sterling K. Webb <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] A Plan To Place An Asteroid In Earth Orbit
> To: "Bernd V. Pauli" <[email protected]>,
> [email protected]
> Date: Monday, August 29, 2011, 11:01 PM
> Hi, Bernd, List,
>
> A mere 10-meter spherical asteroid? (To a physicist,
> everything is spherical at the first approximation...)
> That's 523.6 cu. meters. At a rock density of 2 to 3
> metric tons per cu. meter, that's somewhere between
> 1047.2 and 1570.8 metric tons.
>
> As a disaster, it's on a par with dropping a grand piano
> on a cartoon coyote. It would be a slow approach and
> MIGHT drop 10 kilos of meteorites, but probably not
> unless it grazed the atmosphere at the correct angle.
> However, a 10-meter asteroid is a tiny playground.
>
> What if it were a 100-meter asteroid, ten times bigger,
> and lots of surface (and about 1,000,000 tons). If you
> accidentally dropped that object on the Earth, you'd
> have a 250-meter crater and 0.2 MegaTon blast.
>
> Too big to play with.
>
> A 33-meter asteroid? Airbursts at 14 kilometers and
> splatters a lot of fast fragments, but no craters. From
> this I conclude that the 10-meter asteroid grab is a
> Modest Proposal.
>
> Unless, of course, it's an iron...
>
>
> Sterling K. Webb
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bernd V. Pauli" <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Monday, August 29, 2011 4:51 PM
> Subject: [meteorite-list] A Plan To Place An Asteroid In
> Earth Orbit
>
>
> > "Interesting idea. What could possibly go wrong?"
> >
> > What if the nudge is a little bit too strong?
> > What if the Moon interferes?
> >
> > What if this NEO is thus sent hurtling toward planet
> Earth?
> >
> > - utter devestation
> > - millions of people killed
> > - wildfires
> > - tsunamis
> > - earthquakes
> > - tons and tons of material ejected into the
> atmosphere
> > - etc., etc.
> >
> > Bernd
> >
> >
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>
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