"cosmic collisions"?

Question

I saw an IMAX presentation at the Denver Museum of Natural History called "Cosmic Collisions." It was produced by the DMNH, NASA, & several other major organizations.

However, they proposed that it is possible/realistic to redirect a 7-mile wide chunk of rock via gravity alone. That pissed me off. I felt they had just insulted my intelligence. However, I don't want to judge prematurely.

- What do you see as the pros/cons of such a plan?
- Do you believe that it has a snowball's chance of actually working?

Ed, Is it peanut butter?

Answer 1

I believe it would be possible, would it be the best way, probably not.

You my need to elaborate, what exactly pissed you off about thier proposal? Did they offer a specific scenerio?

Weather something like that actaully works will either not affect us...or we'll all be doomed.

Overall I wouldn't be too upset about the whole thing, it's all just theory and until it is actually done we can only speculate on who any measure would work.

I think you need a cookie.

Answer 2

Haha. They are right. An ounce of prevention.... of course the cure must be applied early. This is similar to the "butterfly effect." You can move a space rock a little bit 30 years before it hits Earth, and by the time the 30 years is over, the rock is no where near Earth. The problem with "gravitational nudging" is the lead time. Most likely we will find a rock aimed at Earth only days before it gets here. By that time, even nuking the rock will do no good because house sized rubble will still rain down all over Earth. It wouldn't destroy ALL life, but it would destroy all cities in its path and cause devastating waves accros the oceans.

Answer 3

I have done the calculations myself and it will in fact work as they say. Gravity calculations are high school level math and not that hard to do. The premise is that if you do it 20 years before the asteroid is expected to hit Earth, you only need to change the speed by 0.01 MPH or some ridiculously small amount. This can in fact be done with only a few ounces of force being applied continuously for several years. The idea that you could deflect an asteroid starting only a few weeks before it was expected to hit is just science fiction.

Answer 4

I haven't seen the show, so I don't know exactly what they are proposing. However, I would suggest that you take NASA seriously. People have been thinking about this with a lot of diligence for at least 30 years. They understand that the Earth is covered with huge fossil craters, some--like the one is Arizona--more apparent than others--like the one under the Gulf of Mexico. Mass extinctions have been caused by these impacts, and we don't want to be next.

Answer 5

this is because of the fact undemanding experience has a ethical factor. Sorry, it does. And the existence of God in fairly much each evidence is in keeping with undemanding experience : "It implies guy's community ability to comprehend the main elementary factors of certainty, particularly, the existence of issues (inclusive of our very own existence), the 1st concepts of being (identity, noncontradiction, and excluded center), and secondary concepts which bypass on the instant from the self-obtrusive concepts (causality, sufficient reason, and so on.)." And artwork on that diction : 'vividly assorted' !!!!

Answer 6

I think it could happen.
if the rock had a route and suddenly it got into a gravitic field (unexpected at first) it would be completely normal to change the route of that rock if the field was strong enough.

Answer 7

sure it would work if they had some way of creating the gravity. how did they propose to create the needed gravity?