What would we do if an asteroid or meteor threatens earth?

Question

The chances are extremely slim for an asteroid threat.
You've seen the movies where our idea was to land on asteriod, drill it, and plant a nuclear weapon to break it into peices.
But let's be realistic...it's already difficult to land on the moon. And it's not even a fast-moving rock that's headed towards earth.

So what would we do?

Answer 1

There really isn't much we can do.

And they wouldn't blow it up, as that would make a lot of smaller asteroids headed towards earth.

Answer 2

You are talking about Armegeddon. (The Movie).

Or the stupid rip off of it...Asteriods.


I'm not sure what Nasa and the government would do, however....the idea of a spacecraft capable of landing on an asteriod/meteor is actually a good one. It's a craft that should be developed by Nasa to be honest, and I'd be surprised if they don't have people thinking that kind of thing up. Nasa has some of the top minds in the world....and that's what they do.


The most likely solution would be what they dismissed in the movie. A surface bombing....several nukes...timed right....blasted into the Asteriod/Meteor in order to change the path of the object so it would miss earth. Will it work...I'm not sure...as in the movie they made a good point about Velocity and Dimension of the Object being to much, and it would be like shooting firecrakers at a Charging Rhino.

Honestly, you probably should ask Nasa this question. If anyone knew what they had in mind for such a disaster, if there is anything capable of preventing it.....they would be the top authority in the World to figure out how to stop it from happening.

Answer 3

It really depends on how early we catch it. If we can detect it many years ahead of time, we can probably push out of the way with only a few small nudges from robot space craft. Give enough warning you could actually move it out of the way by darkening (or lightening) one side of the body relative to the other. The difference in sunlight absorbtion would change the its path.
If we only had a couple of years warning, I would imagine that we would send several semi-suicidal manned missions that would use various explosive (not necessarily nukes) solutions to move it out of the way.
With only weeks or months warning, about the only thing we could do is try to deflect it as it got close, probably with nukes but there would be very little chance of that working so we'd probably just try to evacuate the most affected areas and hunker down.
By the way, when a rock smaller than an asteroid is still in space it is called a meteoroid. A meteor is the actually glowing trail you see in the sky, the term comes from before they were recognized as rocks from space. If it makes it to earth, its a meteorite.

Answer 4

i'm doubtful if this might do the trick. If a particularly super asteroid (say, 2 kilometres by way of a million kilometre) have been headed in direction of the Earth, and became actual going to collide with us, a nuclear weapon of substantial length might in concept be able to interrupt up the asteroid, subsequently keeping off a right away collision with Earth. besides the shown fact that, albeit many nuclear weapons ought to be embarked on area with the help of ICBM, they are not designed for unfastened navigation. they are reentry automobiles with in basic terms adequate technologies for them to reenter the ambience. it might take alterations of the warheads to enable them to circulate out of a low-Earth orbit and detonate on the asteroid far from Earth. Plus, upon the destruction of the asteroid, we would nonetheless probably could take care of a radioactive meteor bathe of the asteroid's remnants hitting around the international.

Answer 5

That depends on the size of the asteroid and the advanced warning we have.
The fact is, if caught early enough, like a few years, the gentlest of push would be enough to steer the asteroid on a trajectory that will not impact Earth.
For the record, landing on the moon is not that hard. What is difficult is landing softly enough for the crew to survive, land them with enough supplies and fuel to be able to take off and come back.
Those are details that a one way mission to put a rocket engine on an asteroid to steer it away do not have to deal with.

Answer 6

Making a large asteroid into a lot of small asteroids is the worst thing you can do. better to try to land on the asteroid and use a rocket motor to change the orbit so that it will miss the earth. Just a slight kick will do the trick, then let gravity do the rest, to make it go into the Sun.

Answer 7

There are studies considering what to do. One that I like is the "gravity Tug". It is basically an ion powered space craft that hovers in front of the asteroid for many years. The gravity of the space craft, small as it is, is enough to pull the asteroid along VERY slightly. If you do that for several years you can change it's speed by a few inches per hour, which is enough to cause it to miss Earth if you start 20 years before it is scheduled to hit. And astronomers CAN predict that far in advance if an asteroid will hit or not.

Answer 8

Difficult to say. Maybe just launch nuclear-tipped missiles instead of actually landing on it and drilling it.

Doug

Answer 9

I really cant agree with you this time,There's allot of info we the people will never know about.
But to answer your question, I would party day and night with the ones I love.
Take care

Answer 10

let nature takes its course , i guess