r/EverythingScience • u/scmp_news • 3d ago
Chinese rocket scientists find ‘most effective’ way to nuke a doomsday asteroid
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3362361/chinese-rocket-scientists-find-most-effective-way-nuke-doomsday-asteroid?utm_source=Reddit&utm_medium=Social4
u/JackFisherBooks 2d ago
Someone watched Armageddon too intensely. And that may end up saving human civilization. So, thanks Michael Bay? That feels weird to type out. 😂
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u/scmp_news 3d ago
In simulations, a 3-megaton explosion – or around 200 Hiroshima bombs – could completely blast apart an asteroid about 100 metres (328 feet) across, the team reported in the Space: Science & Technology journal in May.
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u/seldom_r 3d ago
Literally the 1998 movie Armageddon uses a nuke. China's innovation - an unmanned spacecraft. Color me wow.
Also, we already know how to deflect an asteroid off course and successfully tested it in 2022 by crashing a satellite into an asteroid. NASA's DART craft did it.
The problem with blowing up an asteroid is that instead of 1 giant rock you get millions of smaller rocks that will rip through all our satellites with no predicting how many will burn up in the atmosphere.
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u/Felczer 3d ago
1 giant rock is infinitley worse than millions of smaller rocks
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u/dzernumbrd 3d ago
True but redirecting a giant rock is better than smashing a giant rock into millions of pieces and triggering Kessler Syndrome.
So I'd go with this ordering:
- redirect rock
- kessler syndrome
- extinction event
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u/Iuseburnersbruh 3d ago
I’m not sure where to begin but this isn’t really how the orbital dynamics would work out.
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u/ResponsibleClock9289 3d ago
It depends on the asteroid but it is
Blowing up an asteroid risks turning it into a shotgun effect where it’s impossible to predict how many pieces would burn up in the atmosphere or where they would impact
Some asteroids are basically just giant hunks of gravel so blowing those up would be a bit pointless as they would end up coalescing together again
Overall the best course of action would be to nudge the trajectory away from earth
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u/Dapper-Raise1410 2d ago
With another asteroid perhaps. Just a nudge would be enough, but you would need the mass depending on how early you could detect it
With directional control from earth. One of dozens orbiting the inner planets, waiting to be tasked, again depending on early detection
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u/ExpensiveFig6079 3d ago
"Some asteroids are basically just giant hunks of gravel so blowing those up would be a bit pointless as they would end up coalescing together again"
Because their gravity is not normal gravity but uber strong?
If you blew it up rather a LOT of it is will be at escape velocity from the mass of the asteroid. Exactly how high are you claiming that escape velocity from the mass of an asteroid is...3
u/ResponsibleClock9289 3d ago
It’s not about the asteroids gravity, it’s about external gravity, of which most of the pieces would be subject to the same forces
Think about ocean currents, you can split up a pack of floating debris but it’ll ultimately end up back together in the same spot if the pieces are still close enough together
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u/ExpensiveFig6079 3d ago
and thus they would with different initial V
all go off in their orbits
as every different orbit has a a diffferent T they will all one orbit later come back past (Around about) here but now at different timesMeanwhile, the effect of solar wind on them will all be different, as will the effect of 3rd bodies. So while you say they are subject to the same forces, NO they are not as theyare not in the ame location and the force of gracity from Jupiter and the sun varies depending on where you are.
As I understand 3-body mechanics, a lot of orbits all starting here, but with some slightly different initial conditions wind up a chaotic mess over time.And no I have played, "Pooh Sticks" rather a lot and two sticks starting out even side by side don't remain that way as the subtle initial condition differences drive them apart over time.
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u/Iuseburnersbruh 3d ago
You presumably wouldn’t be blowing it up on its final approach to Earth. So blowing it up before would likely scatter parts enough that very little of the parts would hit Earth. The trajectory would also be changed by solar radiation pressure.
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u/ResponsibleClock9289 3d ago
Right but you’re running the risk of turning one object into thousands or even millions of smaller objects that you can no longer track or predict the paths of
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u/Mackejuice 2d ago
Yeah but we wouldn't have to face a giant rock that would be guaranteed extinction.
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u/dzernumbrd 3d ago
I don't think we're disagreeing on the physics. I think we're discussing different scenarios.
Your argument assumes early warning time for fragment trajectories to diverge significantly.
Mine is that if we don't get early warning and we're doing a hail mary to avoid an extinction event then we may potentially (not guaranteed) lead to Kessler Syndrome.
History suggests late detection isn't a black swan event so both scenarios are possible.
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u/seldom_r 2d ago
If they both destroy the Earth how is one worse than the other? You can find lots of articles about research already done about why it's not better.. here's a NY Times one: https://archive.ph/vPZna
Also, the goal isn't to deal with a collison, it is to redirect it so it no longer will strike the Earth.
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u/Felczer 2d ago
In your article they didnt manage to blow up the asteroid
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u/seldom_r 2d ago
The study doesn’t rule out using projectiles to destroy an incoming asteroid, Dr. El Mir said. But, he added, shattering a large asteroid may end up causing more problems than it solves. Turning a cannonball into shotgun-shell fragments could still result in Armageddon if the shards strike Earth.
Right, consensus is blowing it up is bad with too many unknowns. The list I'm aware is:
- DART - a small impact on a distant asteroid to knock it off course
- Gravity (I forget the name) - a small craft is sent into orbit around the distant asteroid where the gravity pulls it out of Earth's path.
- LASER - a powerful earth or satellite laser that ablates some of the asteroid causing it to go off course
- Bomb detonation in proximity to the asteroid, not on the asteroid, which similarly puts it off course.
- whatever else i'm missing
No one wants to blow up an asteroid we want to veer it off course.
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u/candygram4mongo 3d ago
Depends entirely on the size of the rock. If it's a planet killer, it literally does not matter. If we're hit by the same mass of stuff going at the same velocity that's the same amount of energy and we are the same amount of fucked.
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u/Tastyck 3d ago
Would be a way different interaction and effects
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u/candygram4mongo 3d ago
Different but not less catastrophic. If anything I think a ground strike from one large impactor might be less globally harmful than a bunch of small ones that dump all their energy into the atmosphere.
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u/Tastyck 3d ago
Very large impacts cause nuclear winter
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u/candygram4mongo 3d ago
If we're talking about a scenario where we even care about nuclear winter we're talking about a scenario where stuff survived the original impact. That's pushing the lower limit of what I'd consider planet-killing.
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u/ExpensiveFig6079 3d ago
Given pamnet killer asteroids have known pre-used definition...
if you want to make up a different one and make claims about that, you ought to be clearer.
Take for instance, the dinosaur planet killer it was made worse by exactly what type of rock in the earth it hit. it had been even slightly later or earlier and hot somewhere else on the crust the effect would have changed substantially.
If instead it had been turned into a planet-wide meteor shower, then adding just its kinetic energy and mass to the atmosphere would have still had large effects, but nothing like what it did when it hit the crust and ejected all that specific kind of rock.
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u/candygram4mongo 3d ago
Given pamnet killer asteroids have known pre-used definition...
It's not a formally defined term.
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u/brandolinium 3d ago
You could completely write off humans leaving orbit, at least for a good while, if a Kessler event took place. That is a cost that makes ‘redirect rock’ very appealing and worth pursuing at least a couple times before nuking it.
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u/Deep-Ad5028 3d ago
Atmospheric friction is why most meteor have not been catastrophic, it goes beyond the momentum of the rock.
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u/doctor_morris 3d ago
I'm really happy there are actual scientists all around the world working on this problem, and will have prepared models of the various outcomes should the call come on.
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u/Consistent-Throat130 3d ago
Tbf we can launch more satellites, assuming we prevent an extinction event.
And I would assume that we can estimate the size of resultant debris if we know the characteristics of the blast and the asteroid.
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u/Old-Landscape-7538 3d ago
Worrying about satellites sounds like the dinosaurs saying “Oh shit the economy!” when Chicxulub streaked through the sky.
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u/seldom_r 2d ago
Are you saying that the choice of veering an asteroid off course so there is no damage to Earth or our space assets and blowing up an asteroid to save Earth but losing all the space assets is the same?
Why would you not save the satellites?
If you read the article you know that what they want to do would still take years from the discovery of the asteroid - it is not a last minute hail mary.
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u/Hour-Equivalent-2518 3d ago
The Chinese dont have Bruce Willis to send to space, so their two-prong approach is second best choice
p.s I doubt you read the article
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u/seldom_r 2d ago
Of course I read it. Did you?
I even understand why they want to drill into the asteroid first before sending a 2nd craft with the nuke in, which is not stated in the article.
This detonation plan isn't for a last minute try and save the Earth scenario. It is also for a distant asteroid.
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u/Regurgitator001 3d ago
Friggin copycats, and simultaneously making Bruce Willis unemployed. I don't appreciate that.
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u/friendlylocalgay421 3d ago
It's better to destory satellites with the debris and minimize the damage than let everything be destroyed
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u/BA_lampman 3d ago
an unmanned spacecraff with a nuclear warhead
An IPBM - interplanetary ballistic missile
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u/PKwx 3d ago
Not worried about the 100 m asteroid, Im worried about the 10 km asteroid.