NS: 'Terminator' asteroids could re-form after nuke

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bystander
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NS: 'Terminator' asteroids could re-form after nuke

Post by bystander » Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:15 pm

'Terminator' asteroids could re-form after nuke
New Scientist - 2010 March 11
THE regenerating liquid-metal robots in the Terminator movies have a cosmic relation: incoming asteroids that quickly reassemble if blasted by a nuclear bomb.

If a sizeable asteroid is found heading towards Earth, one option is to nuke it. But too small a bomb would cause the fragments to fly apart only slowly, allowing them to clump together under their mutual gravity. Simulations now show this can happen in an alarmingly short time.
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You'll need a big bomb to keep us apart (Adastra/Taxi/Getty)

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2010/pdf/1456.pdf

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Re: NS: 'Terminator' asteroids could re-form after nuke

Post by neufer » Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:31 pm

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/quotes wrote:
Memorable quotes for Armageddon (1998/I)

Truman (Billy Bob Thornton): [explaining to the Stampers about the asteroid] So, when the rogue comet hit the asteroid belt, it sent shrapnel right for us. For the next 15 days, the Earth's in a shooting gallery. Even if the asteroid itself hits the water, it's still hitting land. It'll flash boil millions of galleons [sic] of sea water and slam into the ocean bedrock. Now if it's a Pacific Ocean impact, which we think it will be, it'll create a tidal wave 3 miles high, travel at a thousand miles an hour, covering California, and washing up in Denver. Japan's gone, Australia's wiped out. Half the world's population will be incinerated by the heat blast, and the rest will freeze to death from nuclear winter.
....................................
Truman: So you drill, you drop the nuke, and you leave. Now, here's the key: you're gonna remote-detonate the bomb... before the asteroid passes this plane, [Quincy shows a video of the asteroid]

Truman: Zero Barrier. You do that, and the remaining pieces of rock should be deflected enough to pass right by us. Now, if the bomb explodes after Zero Barrier... [the video of the asteroid fragments hitting the Earth is displayed]

Truman: Game's over.
Art Neuendorffer

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Back off, asteroids--We've got nukes

Post by bystander » Tue Jun 29, 2010 9:47 am

Nuclear Bombs Could Save Earth from Asteroids
Space.com | 25 June 2010
If a massive asteroid is hurtling toward Earth and threatening to sterilize the entire planet, blasting it to pieces with nuclear bombs might seem fit for a Hollywood movie. But, it could, in fact, be a viable solution to the potentially apocalyptic event, according to scientists who have studied asteroids and possible solutions to prevent Earth impacts.

There are some strings attached: The interloping space rock would have to pose a definite asteroid threat to Earth in a relatively short timeframe to justify such a drastic option, the scientists said. And blowing up an asteroid runs the risk of creating more debris to worry about later, they added.

If an asteroid was expected to collide with Earth within the next 50 years, using nuclear explosives to divert or disperse the hostile space rock could be the best alternative, explained David Dearborn, a research physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.
Back off, asteroids--We've got nukes
Scientific American | Observations | 26 June 2010
To avoid Armageddon, we may have to invoke Armageddon. You know, the Bruce Willis version.

That's the opinion of David Dearborn, anyway, who says we may need to tap our nuclear arsenal if a life-threatening asteroid suddenly comes into view. Dearborn, a research physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, laid out the nuclear case in a talk here Tuesday at the semiannual meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Dearborn's research on nuking asteroids is a fairly natural outgrowth of his other work, which has involved weapons development and testing, as well as three-dimensional modeling of astrophysical processes. He has run numerical simulations of how a nuclear detonation either near or on the surface of a threatening near-Earth object could divert or fragment it, and has found that with a little bit of lead time the weapons could do the job rather well.
...
A directed-energy weapon could do the job, Dearborn said, but not in the state that the technology is in today. A laser such as that at the National Ignition Facility, a nuclear fusion experiment at Lawrence Livermore, could adjust a typical asteroid's course enough to avoid a collision—changing its velocity by about one centimeter per second—but doing so would take about 6,000 years. "I'm not saying that our children's children won't know a lot more than we do, and I certainly hope that they do," Dearborn said, but laser technology isn't up to the job just yet. A non-nuclear blast—or a simple ramming mission—could also work, but those approaches would require numerous launches to match the power of a single nuclear device.
Scientist says nuclear weapons may be best bet for saving Earth from asteroids
PhysOrg | Space Exploration | 28 June 2010
If scientists detect an asteroid headed directly for Earth - one that was large enough to pose a serious threat to life on our planet - would it be wise to bring out nuclear weapons to prevent an impact? Over the past several years, scientists have expressed conflicting opinions on the use of nuclear weapons as a defense against asteroids. Part of the problem is that it’s very difficult to know what asteroids are made of, and how they will respond to different types of nuclear explosives. But at the semiannual meeting of the American Astronomical Society held last month, physicist David Dearborn of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory argued that nuclear weapons could be the best strategy for avoiding an asteroid impact - especially for large asteroids and little warning time.
Don't Be Subtle, Nuke That Asteroid
Discovery Space News | 28 June 2010
In recent years, there's been some uncertainty as to how we should deal with a nasty-looking asteroid tumbling toward Earth. If we're to believe the movies, we need to throw our nuclear arsenal at the offending space rock. But more recently, there have been some very strong arguments for more subtle asteroid deflection techniques.

Going against the recommendations of not using nuclear explosions destroy an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, physicist David Dearborn of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has turned the "softly, softly" approach on its head.

Yes, prepare the missile silos again, it's time to detonate a 100 megaton firework.

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Re: Back off, asteroids--We've got nukes

Post by neufer » Tue Jun 29, 2010 11:53 am

bystander wrote:Nuclear Bombs Could Save Earth from Asteroids
Space.com | 25 June 2010
If an asteroid was expected to collide with Earth within the next 50 years, using nuclear explosives to divert or disperse the hostile space rock could be the best alternative, explained David Dearborn, a research physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.
Image

You nuke it and then

look for the most dangerous leftover piece and nuke that and then

look for the most dangerous leftover piece and nuke that and then....

We pretty much have the technology now.
Art Neuendorffer

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