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Asteroid strike

 
 
 
S

SLD

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So I’m having a discussion with friends about this close encounter that’s coming up. It’s somewhere between 100 to 300 feet long.

The news calls it a city buster. But what would happen if a 100 foot asteroid were to come down on Birmingham, Alabama, where I live. Would it really destroy it? Just the downtown area?

I‘m skeptical it would take down the entire downtown, maybe a square mile of it. That’s a sizable chunk. But I suspect it would be. A lot smaller by the time it hits.

Thoughts?
 
Kinetic energy = .5mv^2 = heat. Heat vaporizes objects and air. Expanding gases knock down buildings. Shock waves in the ground and air.

Kinetic energy weapons. Launch a heavy mass high up, when it hits a target kinetic energy transferd to the area that is hit. No explosives needed.

You can look up known impact craters and estimates of the size of the object.

Meteor Crator
What happened to the asteroid that hit Arizona?
Image result for arizona impact crater
Forty-nine thousand years ago, a large 30 to 50 meter diameter iron asteroid impacted the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona. The resulting massive explosion excavated 175 million tons of rock, forming a crater nearly a mile wide and 570 feet deep. (Click here to learn about the geology of the region)
Click to expand...

As with a nuclear bomb I expect mountains would serve to intensify the effects.
 
steve_bank said:
Kinetic energy = .5mv^2 = heat. Heat vaporizes objects and air. Expanding gases knock down buildings. Shock waves in the ground and air.

Kinetic energy weapons. Launch a heavy mass high up, when it hits a target kinetic energy transferd to the area that is hit. No explosives needed.

You can look up known impact craters and estimates of the size of the object.

Meteor Crator
What happened to the asteroid that hit Arizona?
Image result for arizona impact crater
Forty-nine thousand years ago, a large 30 to 50 meter diameter iron asteroid impacted the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona. The resulting massive explosion excavated 175 million tons of rock, forming a crater nearly a mile wide and 570 feet deep. (Click here to learn about the geology of the region)
Click to expand...

As with a nuclear bomb I expect mountains would serve to intensify the effects.
Click to expand...
But what if you’re on the other side of the mountain? Would it Shield you?
 
Elixir said:
SLD said:
View attachment 42731

I found a simulator. My home is within the outer circle. We’re toast.
Click to expand...
You might survive in the basement. Nah, probably not. You should go outside and watch - you won’t see anything like that again.
Click to expand...
That would be a horse of a different color.

Pack up the car and listen to the radio as it is approaching. Then decide which side of the mountain to be on. But then the asteroid cold hot the top of the mountain solving the dilemma for you.

I read a scifi short story in the 70s. An asteroid is predicted to hit a spot in the USA. Not believing it on the day people begin gathering for a party at the spot. At the end they look up as the atseroid descends.
 
steve_bank said:
Elixir said:
SLD said:
View attachment 42731

I found a simulator. My home is within the outer circle. We’re toast.
Click to expand...
You might survive in the basement. Nah, probably not. You should go outside and watch - you won’t see anything like that again.
Click to expand...
That would be a horse of a different color.

Pack up the car and listen to the radio as it is approaching. Then decide which side of the mountain to be on. But then the asteroid cold hot the top of the mountain solving the dilemma for you.

I read a scifi short story in the 70s. An asteroid is predicted to hit a spot in the USA. Not believing it on the day people begin gathering for a party at the spot. At the end they look up as the atseroid descends.
Click to expand...
Today everyone knows; you don’t look up!
 
steve_bank said:
Pack up the car and listen to the radio as it is approaching. Then decide which side of the mountain to be on. But then the asteroid cold hot the top of the mountain solving the dilemma for you.
Click to expand...
Yeah, a narrow ridgeline would be a good place to be--while it won't save you from a direct impact the ability to duck behind terrain from either direction when you see where it's going in would be of benefit. Thinking about the local ridgeline it wouldn't work--too wide, you wouldn't have time to duck. There's a bowl-shaped piece of terrain up there, though, that's where I would wait it out. If it doesn't land on top it's pretty much certain to be behind terrain. If I knew where it was going in I would aim to be as far below the horizon as possible.
 
Frankly, with the cost of living increases we have seen recently, I think it's about time asteroids got a pay increase, and if management refuses to consider their claim, withdrawal of asteroid services for a few days might force them to change their minds.

In the interest of non-confrontational action though, I would like to see an asteroid work-to-rule first, with an asteroid stop work meeting to discuss further action if management continue to refuse to negotiate in good faith.
 
If the quetion is a serious one. The best thing to do as an asteroid approaches and the the zone narrows is get as far away as you can before the roads get clogged, review all those asteroid catastrophe movies.
 
So is this an imminent event? I haven’t heard about it elsewhere. Granted, I’ve been vacationing, so I have not heard any news really, but…
 
Recently there was a thread about what it would take to destroy the earth. Now we know!

This video shows what would happen if we could slam various objects, starting with a grain of sand and working up, into the earth at 99.9 percent the speed of light. It turns out that the planetoid Sedna, at that speed, would completely vaporize the earth. Cool vid!
 
Its been in the news.

Discovered a month ago, the asteroid known as 2023 DZ2 will pass within 515,000km of the moon on Saturday US time and, several hours later, fly past the Earth at about 28,000km/h. The close encounter will provide astronomers the chance to study a space rock from just over 68,000km away.2 days ago
Click to expand...
Don't you just love the goofy music.

Discovered by an armature. Be afraid be very very afraid.

 
Rhea said:
So is this an imminent event? I haven’t heard about it elsewhere. Granted, I’ve been vacationing, so I have not heard any news really, but…
Click to expand...
Yes. Flew between us and the moon’s orbit this weekend. Between 131 and 328 feet. So I used 200 foot long to simulate the strike on Birmingham.

www.cnn.com

'City killer' asteroid to pass between Earth and moon's orbits this weekend | CNN

On hearing the words "city killer" and "asteroid" in the same sentence, you'd be forgiven for thinking something bad is about to happen.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com
 
Speaking of asteroids ...
I've been reading Paul Davies' Fifth Miracle (The search for the origin of life). According to Davies, the many asteroids which bombarded Earth four billion years ago brought carbon and water and thus may have been essential for the origin of life. Asteroids also carry a variety of organic compounds including amino acids.

The asteroid impacts were so catastrophic that they would have destroyed any life near the surface. So life evolved deep under the surface, presumably in porous rock. Early life got its energy from sulfur or other reducing elements (or from an alkali-acid gradient as in Nick Lane's theory).
 
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