Now I understand what you were suggesting. If the impact time of the pieces was spread out over a very long time frame, then it would probably work. I initially thought that you were just thinking of one big blast close to Earth that tears the large asteroid into many smaller meteorites.
A blast years in advance might spread the material in both time and space sufficiently to protect us. I am curious about the magnitude of a explosion that could blow one of these into bits. The underground nuclear test blasts seem to generate a tiny external effect, which I suspect is due to the small momentum associated with a nuclear weapon. The energy release is immense, but the force is modest when contained within a chamber. That is why I was thinking of adding a large quantity of water adjacent to the weapon that would be converted into high pressure steam which would then send an expelled asteroid chunk on its way. I would prefer to see the asteroid diverted by some process that left it intact if at all possible so that it would entirely miss the planet. The next best alternative as far as I know would be to blast a modest chunk of the material at right angles to the path with enough momentum to achieve the same goal. The smaller ejected material should be thrown hard enough to pass mostly on the other side of the Earth from the now diverted main body. Some debris would no doubt still impact the Earth, but it would be a grand light show. Dave -----Original Message----- From: mixent <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, Feb 13, 2013 1:28 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Near earth asteroid info In reply to David Roberson's message of Sun, 10 Feb 2013 22:10:12 -0500 (EST): Hi, [snip] >I realized I was preaching to the choir a bit with my broken up asteroid >versus one big bad one. But, I actually do think that the total amount of energy deposited into the atmosphere and ground would be the same in either case. If it would destroy all the life on earth as a single hit, I would think it would do the same even if distributed over a large area. The energy is what does the damage. The light show would be most beautiful until the shock wave tore you into pieces. That would be a great way to leave the world! > > >I wonder if anyone has modeled the difference between the two scenarios? > > >Dave ..as I hinted at in my previous post, an explosion in space would not only result in a spatial spread of the debris, but also a temporal spread. By way of a weak analogy consider the difference between a single kilo of high explosive detonated in a crowded place and a hurricane. The high explosive may well kill more people than the hurricane, yet the hurricane has vastly more energy. Of course, the degree of spread obtained would increase the longer the time of the explosion in space was before the time of impact. (gives the pieces more time to spread out). Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
