Two asteroids to pass close to Earth on Wednesday

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Someday one of these 'small' asteroids arent going to miss and there isnt a damn thing they can do about it.

There are many things we can do about it! The primary one is to locate and chart them all before they hit so we can redirect them.

Redirecting them is easy and can be done with current technology.

The easy way requires a some time before impact (like years) just send a spacecraft up and have it fly next to the asteroid. The gravitational field of the spacecraft tugs at the asteroid slowly pulling it off course.

The harder way is to put a Mylar solar sail on the asteroid and have the solar wind push it out of the way. Downside is that it only works well close to the sun.

The easy and quick way is to turn the asteroid in to a big unmanned Orion drive ship. Send up a bunch of nuclear bombs and detonate them one at a time every minute or so near the surface using the force of each explosion to push the asteroid. With sufficiently big bombs a decent sized rock could be redirected in the space of days or weeks.

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

There are many things we can do about it! The primary one is to locate and chart them all before they hit so we can redirect them.

Redirecting them is easy and can be done with current technology.

The easy way requires a some time before impact (like years) just send a spacecraft up and have it fly next to the asteroid. The gravitational field of the spacecraft tugs at the asteroid slowly pulling it off course.

The harder way is to put a Mylar solar sail on the asteroid and have the solar wind push it out of the way. Downside is that it only works well close to the sun.

The easy and quick way is to turn the asteroid in to a big unmanned Orion drive ship. Send up a bunch of nuclear bombs and detonate them one at a time every minute or so near the surface using the force of each explosion to push the asteroid. With sufficiently big bombs a decent sized rock could be redirected in the space of days or weeks.

assuming it is in clear view of course,

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Vendor

Have you been out and looked at the sky, assuming it is in clear view of course,

Every night its clear.

Last Monday the Pleiades's looked very nice in my binoculars.

But for hunting Asteroids well there ain't no stealth in space.

This deals with combat but its applicable to searching for any hard to find target...

A full spherical sky search is 41,000 square degrees. A wide angle lens will cover about 100 square degrees (a typical SLR personal camera is about 1 square degree); you'll want overlap, so call it 480 exposures for a full sky search, with each exposure taking about 350 megapixels.
Estimated exposure time is about 30 seconds per 100 square degrees of sky looking for a magnitude 12 object (which is roughly what the drive I spec'd out earlier would be). So, 480 / 2 is 240 minutes, or about 4 HOURS for a complete sky survey. This will require signal processing of about 150 gigapizels per two hours, and take a terabyte of storage per sweep.
That sounds like a lot, but...
Assuming 1280x1024 resolution, playing an MMO at 60 frames per second...78,643,200 = 78 megapixels per second. Multiply by 14400 seconds for 4 hours, and you're in the realm of 1 terapixel per sky sweep Now, digital image comparison is in some ways harder, some ways easier than a 3-D gaming environment. We'll say it's about 8x as difficult - that means playing World of Warcraft on a gaming system for four hours is about comparable to 75 gigapixels of full sky search. So not quite current hardware, but probably a computer generation (2 years) away. Making it radiation hardened to work in space, and built to government procurement specs, maybe 8-10 years away.
I can buy terabyte hard drive arrays now.

BTW Magnitude 12 = the brightness of a moon or largeish asteroid...

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Every night its clear.

Last Monday the Pleiades's looked very nice in my binoculars.

But for hunting Asteroids well there ain't no stealth in space.

This deals with combat but its applicable to searching for any hard to find target...



BTW Magnitude 12 = the brightness of a moon or largeish asteroid...

btw,nice site
what do you think of SETI, it is an opportunity

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Vendor

what do you think of SETI, it is an opportunity

Well I analyze data for them with my screen saver.

Doesn't hurt to listen for a signal. Or the lack of a signal.

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Well I analyze data for them with my screen saver.

Doesn't hurt to listen for a signal. Or the lack of a signal.

but my eyes were about to fall out, and indefinitely as there were,
a rather interesting experience even if there was any action, directly

Not Dinosaur killer sized ,but if someone's missed a decimal place working out the orbits and one of them doesn't miss ,there'll be a hell of a bang and a really cool light show at least

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by darius359au

Not Dinosaur killer sized ,but if someone's missed a decimal place working out the orbits and one of them doesn't miss ,there'll be a hell of a bang and a really cool light show at least

Amen

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Amen

it is good that you pray for us,

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Vendor

it is good that you pray for us,

I was praying for me...first

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

I was praying for me...first

ego tripped....

[ReFaN]

Quick to the shelters, dont panic; run ruuun now!

[Platapus]

I got one word to say on this issue


Triffids.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Platapus

I got one word to say on this issue


Triffids.

I'm sure the DoD has some canisters of Agent Orange laying around in a bunker somewhere to deal with them...

[Reece]

We're all gonna die a horrible death!!