Although I realize this is pointless if it really happens, but I'll ask anyway. They say if an asteroid hit the planet it would be so fast we wouldn't see it for more than a second before it hit. It would supposedly be able to dig into the core, shoot a mushroom could into space and coat the earth with fire and smoke before we knew it even happened. Really wouldn't the first thing to happen be inertia? The earth spins at millions of mph and if that were to change we'd all feel it at the same time right? So wouldn't we all be either shot into the stratosphere or dug into the mantle before we could be burnt alive?
2006-08-31 02:14:03 · 9 answers · asked by imajiknation 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Hey, as400_guru, I'm not a geek. When the hell am I going to need to know the exact speed that the earth rotates at? I'm not launching a shuttle, I'm posting a question on Yahoo.
2006-08-31 02:27:42 · update #1
I know the mass of the asteriod compared to the earth is tiny, but compared to a human it's pretty good. You don't think that it might at least knock us down if we're on the other side of the planet when it strickes.
2006-08-31 02:30:24 · update #2
Sorry, I mean strikes.
2006-08-31 02:31:21 · update #3
Jump realllllly high... just before impact. Like they say about elevators. (sorry, not serious) We'd be screwed.
2006-08-31 12:20:48 · answer #1 · answered by Koklor 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Tony's numbers aren't totally out of line, but they are used kind of badly. It's entirely reasonable for an asteroid to be travelling 30 miles/second since that's at least in the same ballpark as the Earth's speed around the Sun. The speed relative to Earth will be signficantly less than that, though. You have to compare the direction of the vectors as well, and since the asteroids are part of the same disk of matter that formed the planets, the asteroids are orbiting the same direction as Earth. It would take some serious perturbing forces to get the angle of the asteroid's velocity vector oriented in a direction that would get anywhere near Tony's 30 miles/second speed if you're talking speed relative to Earth.
A comet, on the other hand, could have an orbit with a much higher eccentricity (much flatter ellipse) and could hit at a much higher speed. In fact, the Leonids meteor showers are particles from a comet that happens to orbit the opposite direction as the Earth. One of the big concerns about the 1998 Leonids meteor storm was the incredibly high speeds Leonids meteors had relative to the Earth. The speeds were too high to be simulated by any man-made device, making it difficult to predict what would happen to a satellite struck by a Leonids meteor. Taking an entire comet coming from a bad direction instead of small particles would be a much more dramatic event than an asteroid.
2006-08-31 03:57:16 · answer #2 · answered by Bob G 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
1. If an asteroid will be on a collision course with earth we'll find about it weeks and maybe years before it happens.
2. an asteroid with the diameter of 1000 m. (a giant) will not penetrate the earth crust, and definitely not reach the core.
3. the mass of such an asteroid is negligible compared to that of earth, so there will be little change in inertia.
4. the earth spin at 40000 km per 24 hours, which is far from millions of mph.
so the results you suggest will occur are not realistic
2006-08-31 02:27:10 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
No, the dynamic effects on Earth's rotation and orbit would be negligible. I'm pretty sure an asteroid can't dig into Earth's core. What it can do, however, is severely disrupt Earth's crust on a relatively local scale (perhaps a diameter of several hundred miles), and the ejected material would affect climate on a global scale. Because the asteroid is several orders of magnitude smaller than the Earth, it would not throw Earth out of its orbit or alter its rotation. It would take something the size of a dwarf planet to manage that, as happened to Earth over 4 billion years ago (creating the Moon) or Uranus in a similar timeframe (setting it on its side).
2006-08-31 02:26:36 · answer #4 · answered by DavidK93 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
If it was 1,000,000 miles away before we saw it coming and moving at 30 miles per second relative to the earth, it would impact in less than 10 hours. From 30 miles high, it would take only 1 second to impact assuming it was coming straight down, and it was massive enough so that the air did not slow it down enough to matter.
If an asteroid hits on the trailing side of earth's orbit, it will be moving much slower, because it is trying to catch up.
BTW: The Earth spins at about 1,000 mph at the equator.
2006-08-31 03:29:40 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Not necessarily. It is believed that 65 million years ago an asteroid landed on our planet and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. It depends on the size of the asteroid. Even then, one can only simulate and find out. Scientists got a fine example of this when the comet Shoemaker-Levy crashed into Jupiter a few years ago.
2006-08-31 02:20:50 · answer #6 · answered by Sana 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
It will take a relatively small asteroid to totally destroy all life on earth..
But we have a chance on at least one known future asteroid that we might after visit #1 be able to do something to keep its visit #2 from destroying us.
There is one asteroid due to pass close to earth twice in this century, and visit #2 if path is unmodified will possibly (unconfirmed) destroy.
2006-09-01 11:17:11 · answer #7 · answered by pcreamer2000 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You must have watched the same tv show I watched last nite. It was very interesting but kind of depressing!
2006-08-31 02:31:35 · answer #8 · answered by candy7 2 · 1⤊ 2⤋
The earth doesn't spin at "millions of mph", it spins at about 1,100 mph...What government sanctioned child abuse indoctrination center (public school), did you attend?
2006-08-31 02:21:37 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 4⤋