move?
2007-10-11 06:32:51 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Well in space there's no friction to slow things down and things can move pretty fast.
Scientists have said in the event that an asteroid hits us, the first we'll know about it will be when it hits the atmosphere - it would hit the surface about a second later - that's fast - and if it was big, say a few kilometres wide, we'd all be dead. Maybe not immediately but end of the world.
No point worrying about it though, hey?
2007-10-11 06:37:29 · answer #1 · answered by Leviathan 6 · 4⤊ 0⤋
It would not be the speed that would make it hard to detect. All asteroids move at pretty much the same speed according to the laws of orbital mechanics. It would be the size. Smaller is harder to detect and larger is easier. This is a good thing because the harder it is to detect the smaller it is and the less damage it could do if it hit. We have certainly detected all the asteroids large enough to cause extinction of humanity already.
One possible exception would be a new comet arriving from the Oort cloud. These comets come in now and then, pass the Sun once and disappear back into deep space, never to return again; or not for thousands of years anyway. So we have only one chance to detect them, while asteroids can be seen to pass Earth many times before they finally hit which gives us plenty of opportunities to detect them and plenty of time to deflect them. A new comet could be detected maybe a year or two before it hit. That would not be enough time to do anything to stop it. The best we could do in that case is try to predict as closely as possible where on Earth it would hit and evacuate that area. Luckily most comets are small enough that they would probably not cause an extinction event.
2007-10-11 06:53:16 · answer #2 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No physical object can reach the speed of light because as it accelerates it's mass would also increase.
That being said and asteroid could be as close as the moon (300,000 miles) and we could not see it. On average there are only about fifteen pairs of eyes watching the sky for Near earth Asteroids at any given time. We'd need at least five years warning to do smething affective.
The comet that crashed into Jupiter (shoemaker,levy 9 ) was spotted so late that if it had been earth it was crashing into the only thing we could have done is find the nearest partner and start making love.
Speed is irrelevent think about it, would you rather have a pick up truck or a mack truck crash into your house at 25 mph either way.....Damage!
My advise....don't worry about it.
2007-10-11 07:54:49 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
These figures come from a U of Arizona site that allows calculating the effect of meteor impact.
The minimum impact velocity on Earth is 11 km/s. Typical impact velocities are 17 km/s for asteroids and 51 km/s for comets. The maximum Earth impact velocity for objects orbiting the sun is 72 km/s.
This is the site: its great to play with.
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
Since we have only a rudimentary asteroid watch, detecting it at all would be chancy. Asteroids don't emit any light and they don't have easy to spot tails. Unless we had years of advance notice, there wouldn't be a thing we could do about it except to curse our fate. Presently there is no chance of moving or destroying one.
2007-10-11 07:51:30 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Corrections:
1. You left out the word 'moves' or 'travels'. It should be the 5th word in your post.
2. "Doomsday" not "doomday".
3. "Scenarios", not "Scenerios".
4. "How fast can 'an' asteroid move'.
2007-10-11 06:38:37 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
In theory, the speed of light. And since in outer space there is no friction or drag forces, That value would be c, or 3E+08 m/s
And I believe it would slow down to the terminal velocity of air (I don't know the precise value) when it hit the Earth's atmosphere
2007-10-11 06:39:52 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
We're tracking thousands of lumps or rock and ice around the solar system so we should get plenty of warning. Of course there could be one they missed that could .......
2007-10-11 06:38:29 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
at this point no stratagy for dealing with impact colisons exists so it doesn't matter
2007-10-11 10:07:22 · answer #8 · answered by nurgle69 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
About as fast as my wife doing the school run..!!! ( pucking fast..)....nuff said
Oh check out the brain on okharris.... !!!...wish i was that clever.
2007-10-11 06:45:18 · answer #9 · answered by Pinhead 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
We will all die like the dinosaurs.
2007-10-11 06:46:17 · answer #10 · answered by Surveyor 5 · 3⤊ 0⤋