Sci/Tech Scientists plan mission to blow up an asteroid 'hurtling towards Earth'

The Helper

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It seemed far-fetched on the silver screen.

But the European Space Agency is planning to launch a mission similar to the plot of Hollywood movie Armageddon, in which Bruce Willis and his intrepid team attempt to blow up a huge asteroid that’s hurtling towards Earth.

The real version, if it goes ahead in 2015, will see a satellite fired at break-neck speed into a ‘test’ asteroid to see if its course changes.

The aim is to assess whether it would be possible to save Earth using this method, should we discover that an asteroid is on a collision course with our planet.

 
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Lyerae

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But the European Space Agency is planning to launch a mission similar to the plot of Hollywood movie Armageddon, in which Bruce Willis and his intrepid team attempt to blow up a huge asteroid that’s hurtling towards Earth.

After reading the title, that's the first thing that popped into my head. :D
 

MasterOfRa

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Note that I am not an expert, but I have read about physics and otherwise, and some of this is just *common* sense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCoHT_cHPzY&feature=channel_video_title
I think that we should realize that in space, blowing something up means something different than what it does on a planet. On a planet, say, If you blow up a building/city/etc, While the shrapnel will fly in all directions, The gravitational pull will limit the maximum range of the shrapnel. It will hit the ground, but unless it is extremely high velocity, It will probably not get very far. Now in space on the other hand, If you blow up an asteroid, Or a space station, Well, You have a different deal altogether. Similar to the results of a mass driver shot in the video, if with likely lower velocity, The shrapnel of the asteroid will be dispersed over a large area, and some of it will almost certainly head towards earth. More-so, The closer the asteroid is, The higher the average amount of shrapnel will hit the planet (this is ofc assuming we are not doing a controlled demolition, so considering how we can demolish a building in a city block without any damage to surrounding buildings, well, I hope they use this knowledge here as well) so hitting it farther away is generally better. Now, Also, an asteroid of the size to threaten the earth as we know it (I am not interested in a discussion about how with a few exceptions, such as a moon sized object crashing into us/the sun exploding/ a visit by a black hole, The earth will survive regardless of what happens, if not in the state where *life as we know it* will exist, and humans are able to thrive) Will probably not be possible to destroy. (whatever that means, see again that you are not going to blow a nuke and have the whole mass of the asteroid suddenly disappear, remember the conservation of energy and mass?) Now, A good possibility would also be to direct the relatively small force into diverting the asteroid off of the collision course with earth. Now, If you imagine a game of hokey, I believe that the angle (and force) required to divert the puck away from going into the goal is lower the farther away from the goal. The closer it is to the goal, The more you have to apply to divert it to miss. Similarly, A nuke will not be able to apply much force to an asteroid, but It will likely be able to nudge it, which will add up significantly if the asteroid is far enough away.

This means that we will need to detect asteroid threats early, and hope that politics and similar doesn't get in the way of a mission.
 

phyrex1an

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Note that I am not an expert, but I have read about physics and otherwise, and some of this is just *common* sense.
Yeah, changing the trajectory is exactly what the experiment is all about. No one has ever considered "blowing it up" as a plausible way to deal with rogue asteroids. Colliding a heavy weight in an asteroid to change it's trajectory is currently* the only plausible method we have to avert a earth collision, and this experiment will test if it can work in practice.

* Stuff outside our technological reach include:
1. Ionizing parts of it with a laser (a nuke might work too) thus changing the trajectory
2. Land on it and start to eject some of its mass thus changing the trajectory
3. Strap a solar sail on it thus changing the trajectory

Well... throwing a heavy weight on it to change the trajectory is far easier but not really as awesome.
 

The Helper

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If an Asteroid was detected like in Deep Impact or Armageddon this kind of thing is what we want as Data and we want to have run these types of experiments. We already are pretty sure that getting hit by an Asteroid has wiped out almost all life on this planet in the past....
 

Varine

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What if they mistime the rocket and hit the moon instead?

In the event we land on it in a desperate attempt, do you think I could volunteer to do so? I always wanted to go into space....
 

xPass

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"Will they succeed?
Please stay tune for the next episode!"

:lolwut:
 

Accname

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this is important!!!
the poor people must understand that the government has more important things to do then to save lifes.
 
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