I have been wondering about another possible situation with regard to the near miss. What are the chances that gravitational gradient from the Earth might break this asteroid into many smaller pieces that then might cause havoc in small chunks. Remember the large comet that impacted Jupiter. It was torn into a long chain of individual meteors or whatever you want to call them by a similar close encounter.
Does anyone have information concerning this scenario? Dave -----Original Message----- From: Jones Beene <jone...@pacbell.net> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Mon, Feb 4, 2013 5:13 pm Subject: RE: [Vo]:Near miss - hopefully The unspoken assumption isthat the asteroid is composed of normal matter – and if so, then it wouldtake substantial mass to deflect it. What would be the effectof an asteroid composed of “other” kinds of matter – such asmirror matter in our solar system, and was there a precedent for that already(1908) ? It is true that Antimattermay not exist in our galaxy, but mirror matter could coexist. There is the Wikisite but it is deficient on many details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_matter …there are some whothink that the Tunguska event was a comet or asteroid composed of another kindof matter. Notably, Robert Foot has expressed a fairly convincing hypothesis…and if the Siberia event was a true precedent for the aftermath of an evencloser near-miss then, then we can surmise a small satellite could be moreproblematic following a collision than its mass would suggest. http://books.google.com/books/about/Shadowlands.html?id=3evE2K-ylVIC Robin wrote This one is not as wide as it is long, so I estimatethe mass at about 70000 tons. So it is about the same as a 1.5 ton car whacking into20 g songbird. Not likely to deflect the path much. But even a tiny effect willchange the orbit significantly over time. That is why they are talking aboutdeflection techniques for meteorites such as painting one side white, toincrease the effect of sunlight. Like a Crooks radiometer. - Jed
