Asteroid Mitigation Techniques

[Jason_Jay_Dan]

Imagine a relatively small asteroid has entered the Earth's atmosphere. Imagine it is large enough to destroy a city.



Question:

We now have the ability, arguably, to intercept an incoming missile with a missile....could we use a nuclear tipped interceptor missile to...well...intercept the incoming asteroid and either destroy it or reduce the negative effects of an impact(would the missile have a worthy effect?)? Would the fact that the Asteroid is in the atmosphere enhance the destructive potential of the nuclear interceptor ( pressure waves and such being introduced to the asteroid ).

The recent Missile ( or whatever ) seen emerging off the coast of Californian got me to thinking about the possibility....

 

[adrenalynn]

Now we don't just have a city buster, but we're raining radioactive fallout over most of a continent.

That's kinda like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[Jason_Jay_Dan]

well, being exposed to some radiation is preferable to being completely incinerated. Also, maybe it could be timed to hit over an ocean or relatively unpopulated area.....????

 

[MeteorWayne]

Well, from the time it enters the atmosphere, you've got about 10 seconds to "destroy" it.

And even if you break it up (assuming one big enough to destroy a city) all the pieces continue on their merry way, so not only do you get radiation, but you still get incinerated~

In fact, most asteroids in that size range (say 20-40 meters) break up in the atmosphere on their own, and still blast the ground (See Tunguska, 1908)

 

[Jason_Jay_Dan]

Well, from the time it enters the atmosphere, you've got about 10 seconds to "destroy" it.

And even if you break it up (assuming one big enough to destroy a city) all the pieces continue on their merry way, so not only do you get radiation, but you still get incinerated~

In fact, most asteroids in that size range (say 20-40 meters) break up in the atmosphere on their own, and still blast the ground (See Tunguska, 1908)

Well, the Tunguska event was supposed to be the result of an air blast, which is more than a simple "break up". 20-40 meters is roughly 60-120 feet size range....would a large enough nuke not be sufficient to completely vaporize the incoming asteroid?

This website shows the results of a nuclear test in which a crater 1280 ft in diameter was created from an underground nuclear blast....now the 60-120 ft asteroid is peanuts when set aside something like that so.....wouldn't the asteroid be vaporized...even if it were and iron/nickel asteroid?

http://deputy-dog.com/2009/06/worlds-largest-man-made-explosion.html

 

[MeteorWayne]

It was an air blast from an asteroid that broke up in the atmosphere. Which most do. A nuke is going to have little or no effect in 10 seconds...in any case, the same amount of mass is still heading in the same direction.

 

[Telenauta]

It was an air blast from an asteroid that broke up in the atmosphere. Which most do. A nuke is going to have little or no effect in 10 seconds...in any case, the same amount of mass is still heading in the same direction.

Even if 10 seconds is a small amount of time, the huge amount of surface area now exposed to air resistance would vastly increase the drag coefficient of the mass (if it can be said that way), therefore slowing down that very same mass, which is now pulverized.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Which still doesn't change the amount of energy dumped into the atmosphere....so we all still get fried.

 

[Telenauta]

Good point. Since you mentioned mass moving downward towards the surface, I thought you were implying the speed of impact would be the catastrophic cause.

On the speculative side, weather systems are able to "carry"? huge amounts of energy. Maybe the lucky cold front, high pressure system or jet stream would dissipate a large amount of this energy?

BTW, I'm not trying getting on your nerves or anything I'm just trying to get your opinion.