old movie, "deep impact" with morgan freeman, how likely is that scenario in real life?..?

Question

to those who didnt see it, a comet is heading for planet earth on a collision course,, it can't be stopped by conventional methods, i have heard of near misses and close encounters,, have heard that comets may have wiped out dinosaurs, wonder if it could happen again????

Answer 1

In 1908, a small asteroid or comet exploded over the wilderness area of Siberia. It blasted down about 2000 sq kms of forest, more than the eruption of Mt St Helens. Had it hit a city, tens of thousands could have died. In fact, it never touched down. The super-heated blast from its encounter with the atmosphere at probably 20 km/sec was what blasted the trees down, and burned many of them. That happened at an estimated 5 km above ground. Look up Tunguska on Google.

The Tunguska impactor was reckoned to be only 50 to 80 metres across. So, you can imagine what something the size of the one in Deep Impact would do.

Where they went wrong was that when father and daughter were watching the thing come down over the sea, the atmospheric heat blast from the thing as it travelled across the sky would have roasted them on the spot. Then the blast from that overhead traverse would have hit them long before the huge tsunami came and washed over the beach.

But nevertheless, it was a good movie.

NASA are at the moment plotting all the Earth crossing asteroids bigger than 1 km wide (those would be over 1000 times bigger than Tunguska - you have to think in volumes). Asteroids of that size are considered dangerous enough to destroy civilisation (not necessarily make us extinct). Once they know the orbits of all of those, they can predict a hit years in advance, giving time to think up ways of dealing with it.

I understand that Earth-crossing Asteroids of that size hit the Earth in periods of tens of thousands of years, so we are probably safe for a while.

Here is NASAs site where you can find out what ones have been found and plotted.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/neo_ca

This one enables you to enter parameters of size, velocity etc and see the results of an impact - size of crater, burn effects, blast effects

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

PS: Impactors as big as the one that purportedly killed the dinosaurs and lots of other species, are estimated to hit us about every 100 million years. So, on average, we have 35 million years to go. However, it could be next year.

Answer 2

"Casablanca" is an old movie. "Deep Impact" is a recent movie. Tea Leoni is a major fox.

The destruction of all life on earth, what is called an "Extinction Level Event (ELE)" in the movie, with humorous results, is in general a plausible scenario. As things now stand, we are not likely to see the object coming that kills most, or all, of us and the things we depend on for life.

It is likely enough that serious grownups are now trying to figure out what can be done about it. And, I am sorry to say, the more we study it, the less it looks like we will be able to prevent a collision. And can you imagine the government that handled the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina handling a destructive event on that scale?

The bottom line is, yes, it can happen. Yes it is fairly likely. No, very few of us will even know it is coming. No, there is no point in worrying about it. A man I knew was walking down the street in Houston TX when someone dropped a saucepan lid out of a 35th story window. The lid split my friend's head into two pieces, and he never knew what hit him. I think he was lucky.

Sweet dreams...

Answer 3

in school visit to museum, the guide tell us that meteor/comet impact is not something extraordinary, indeed very common (at least from universe point of view). This surely will happened again, but may not in our lifetimes. Hopefully, when a meteor/comet finally heading to earth, mankind already have an advanced technology to prevent the impact.

Answer 4

If you look at the moon you can see where comets have hit before but it doesn't happen that much the last time we got hit was when the dinosaurs where around so don't worry it will probably never happen in your lifetime.

Answer 5

well in 2045 there IS a comet coming our way but it will miss us.

it is not if but when we will be hit......we have been hit before and we will be hit again it is just a matter of time.

don't worry about it tho.....it may never happen in your life time. you can use the internet to do more than answer questions. try looking in Nasa web site they have that question in there....you can get a lot of info..

watch amageden its a really cool movie better than deep impact.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

People are watching the skies just for that purpose. To see if any large objects are on collision course with Earth.

Answer 8

lately they found that comets are loosely held together particles that wouldn't make it through the atmosphere. movies don't really happen for real usually. except Highlander 2. that was true.

Answer 9

Don't worry. Something else will kill you long before a comet hits.

Answer 10

There is a chance of you getting hit by a car, plane, a derailed train, and a bolt of lightning at the same time...nothing is impossible.