A nasty asteroid has a 75-1 chance of hitting Mars next month? How to protect earth?

Question

Theres a whole load of new asteroids being discovered due to our (NASA) improved detection technology.

The odds have been recently cut of the asteroid hitting Mars from 350-1 to 75-1. It's not a massive asteroid... but if it hit London, then London would be wiped out good and proper - or any other major city.

-- Quote: The impact, however, would be tiny in comparison to that of the asteroid that struck Chicxulub in Mexico 65 million years ago, which caused a worldwide cataclysm that is thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs. The new asteroid is 100 times smaller than the 10km diameter rock that caused that event. --

How best to protect Earth from late detection of these new asteroids being discovered which may be on rapid collision course with Earth? Shouldn't we be making this a priority?

Lasers? Nukes?

Background news article re Mars / Asteroid / next month's possible impact.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3082960.ece

Answer 1

this is not necessarily a new issue. many groups are already trying to find solutions for this.

It is a common daily event for earth's atmosphere to be hit by a few asteroids. they burn up before they reach the ground of course, but a large asteroid could do quite a bit of damage.

Destroying them or moving them is obviously something we need to work on, BUT..... more importantly, the major issue is spotting an asteroid in time before its too late to react.

There's alot of space (angles/degrees) in the sky to cover all at once, and an asteroid moving fast enough would be even harder to detect in time. (You'd be surprise to know how much we're not paying attention to right now and can't.)

******************************************
I've heard that soon, there is an asteroid, Apophis, coming near earth. http://www.theinsider.org/news/article.asp?id=2592
It is supposed to come nearby in 2014 and loop back in 2029 and 2036. This has people concerned that it could hit us. After analysis, they claim the odds are about 10,000/1 or something.

The asteroid will be close enough on each of its approaches to offer numerous opportunities for us to send probes within proximity and/or land on it to conduct experiments concerning your issue.

I think they plan on using a small ship to "push on" the asteroid and continue thrusting. Hopefully changing its angle of velocity by just a few degrees will be enough to move the asteroid off course, resulting in a positive experiment.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/mar/07/spaceexploration.frontpagenews

Only a live experiment can prove if the plan will work, but it seems to make quite a bit of sense.
*****************************
Nuking is a very possible solution, but there is a partial test ban treaty between numerous countries NOT to fire nukes in space for any reason...... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_Test_Ban_Treaty
Global emergency might negate the contract for a few nuclear explosions to save the planet though.

There is the idea of using a laser, which could also push the asteroid out of the way(not blow it up) but I don't know if it could work the way we expect. who knows.
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2262&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

I think the best bet is to work on beefing up LADAR technology (laser radar) so we could have a global passive Ladar scanning system for the skies and be prepared to launch tug probes to move a threat off course. Quite expensive, but worth it.
******************************
If we can't stop "the big one", all I ask for is a big bottle of jack, and a front row seat so I could enjoy the view and just get it over with.

**********************************
if an asteroid was big enough to hit London and destroy it completely, it would have enough force to created a HUGE explosion.

Possibly triggering a tsunami and would definitely kick up enough dust, rock, dirt, buildings, tube stations and moisture HIGH enough into the upper layers of the atmosphere to choke out the sun for decades.

The whole earth would suffer DRASTIC temperature drops the whole time the sun blockage lasted, resulting in long freezes, damaging food crops and our ecosystem.

There would be a global famine amongst many species, and even humans would have a high chance of extinction.
************************

Answer 2

London has been moved to Mars?

This is all part of the latest craze of: Give me your money otherwise you are doomed.

Next thing, someone will tell us that the asteroid has weapons of mass destruction.

You ask:
How best to protect Earth from late detection of these new asteroids

Stop detecting them, then we'll be protected from their detection.

On a more serious note, there is already a project to build the next improved generation of asteroid detector : Pan-STARRS.

Answer 3

There can probably be no protection against late detection of asteroids barreling towards the Earth.
However, the only two viable methods for altering an asteroid's impact course towards our planet, would be to either use solar energy (i.e., reflectors), on the asteroid's surface, nudge it out of the way, or, to send spacecraft to either use a passive (close fly-by, thereby, using the small gravity exerted by the spacecraft), or more aggressive (impactor) spacecraft, to slam into the asteroid, using brute force (no nukes).
I agree, that using nuclear devices would probably cause more harm than good--who wants to breathe radioactive fallout for the rest of our lives!

Answer 4

I actually did my dessertation on this on NEO (Near Earth Objects) planetary defense at uni for my aero degree course.....i looked at a number of mitigating methods to divert/destroy an asteroid/comet.....my findings was this.......if a comet hits were dead (due to its large nature) and asteroid lager than a 1km in diameter will cause catestrophic affects....

1. Nuke it...will cause the NEO to become a massive cloud of ash still heading in our direction, hence, coating the the earth resulting in a effect nuclear winter.....

2. Laser is used to alter its mass and therefore rotation ultimately altering its projectory (along the z-axis as asteroid primarily only rotates through that point).....however u have to see it coming from a long way away -- and get to it - similar to the mining method....an asteroid can also easily break up (do not want it to break up) as they are simply piles of rock held lightly together by their own gravitational forces.

3. Eath is constantly bombarded by asteroids, but break up witin our atmosphere because they are too small.

4. the best method to my opinion is to alter its rotation speed changing its gyro-force resulting in a change of projectory by placing thruster at key points along the z-axis of the NEO and apply small forces, over a period of time.

so to answer ur question, we are powerless to stop any real threat as we dnt monitor enough oof space to anticipate a collision coupled with technology ineffecient to deal with an immediate threat.

so quickly make out with ur girl and kiss ur **** good-bye if 1 is to hit ;)

Answer 5

Get behind Mars. And here is me worried over Global Warming

Answer 6

probably lasers outfitted to an interstellar space defense station orbiting the sun..... nukes would probably have an adverse effect, such as poisoning the atmosphere...... Maybe plasma rays? Shields? maybe if we found some way to create a super-electro-magnet, we could repel it away from us ^_^

Answer 7

Did you watch the movie Asteroid?

Answer 8

I wouldn't worry about it really. Mankind is already doing the job of an asteroid, it just delaying the process really and taking much longer to destroy our planet. Global warming!

Answer 9

it now seems that mother nature extends into outer-space if we can detect tsunami's and earthquakes and have little effects on their outcome ,what chance against asteroids?

Answer 10

it must be 1:48am. LOL