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Thanks to successful Osirix-Rex mission, we now know asteroid 101955 Bennu has a plastic ball pit like surface, where NASA probe would have sink having not fired its retro-thrusters.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/20 … c-ball-pit
These findings may suggest a possible strategy to avoid a deep impact with Bennu (or a Bennu like) asteroid:
Given that Bennu has a mass of 7*10^10 kg, we may send a 300 meganton Tasr-Bomb like warhead, let it deep sink inside the asteroid and detonate it when it is near the center: 300 megaton are 1.255*10^18 Joule so its detonation will make radially explode the whole asteroid imparting a mean velocity of 1893 m/s of its fragments, given V=SQRT(2*1.255*10^18/7*10^10).
What we still don't know, is if Bennu is all a plastic ball pit or it also has a solid rocky core that may affect the mission.
So, in a future, we may send a penetrating probe to study the inner structure of the asteroids (or two or more surface probe in different position exchanging sound waves)
Last edited by Quaoar (2022-07-13 04:45:49)
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One of the reasons I might object to 'Nuking It' is because it might not be one asteroid but an Asteroid that evolved and blended and started to join with other asteroids, it seems to be a mixed collection of surfaces, lots of sandy material but also giant Iron boulders on its surface, it also has white maybe watery features or Pyroxene igneous and metamorphic rocks which came from other alien worlds.
I believe once in every 100,000 years a 500 meter or 1640 feet close to Bennu size object hits, I believe Bennu will not hit but if an object of this size did it will explode with 2.8 Gigatons of TNT, America might even get lucky as it could just strike some random island place in the South Pacific but some might want to stop a tsunami and save the Local Natives on the island and send out a mission to 'Nuke It'. We have never blown up Asteroids, the only thing humanity has truly destroyed are other Satellites in ASAT weapons tests. If we are to test Nuke something like this why would you do it in a place that possibly creates an even greater potential threat to Earth?
If you look at the film from Operation Crossroads Baker explosion none of the ships were outright destroyed, they were however damaged and highly irradiated, would the large iron boulders and mountains remain intact but some continue to blast Earth but now radioactive? . Sport divers who visit Bikini to dive on the shipwrecks must eat imported food, the Bomb Helen of Bikini and was detonated 90 feet (27 m) under and Radioactive sea spray caused extensive contamination, a third deep-water test named Charlie was planned for 1947 but was canceled primarily because of the United States Navy's inability to decontaminate the target ships after the Baker test, Glenn T. Seaborg, the longest-serving chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called Baker "the world's first nuclear disaster." Fifty-seven guinea pigs, 109 mice, 146 pigs, 176 goats, and 3,030 white rats had been placed on 22 target ships in stations normally occupied by people. 35% died or were euthanized in the three months following the explosion: 10% were killed by the air blast, 15% were killed by radiation, and 10% were killed by the researchers as part of later study.. Do we really think things through or we watch too much Bruce Willis films, is that why we think we can send up some Oil dude and Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, in some flying Space Shuttle Flash Gordon ship and that's why we decide we must Nuke everything?
Bennu, it is 490 m 1,610 ft in size, we don't know if it has stone or waters or iron, by Nuking it you might not destroy it you might turn it into a weird shape a big hole 100 meters to 328 feet on the side of its face and 30 meters deep weird cave valley in its center, we do not know what its internal make up is and how that energy inside would vent. You might just distort its shape and send it into a chaotic orbit, you might create thousands of other mini asteroids floating around our solar system that will shotgun blast other satellites of Earth, Moon and Mars, wrecking all those expensive science projects in orbit crashing into them at 28,000 + mph or 45,000 these exploding satellites might cause a chain reaction and wipe out other satellites, by attempting to Nuke the asteroid you might simply create lots of other smaller and very dangerous bits, 'MIRVs' of sorts and multiple hits from many space rocks about 130 feet (40 meters) in diameter, hitting or air-bursting over NewYork, London, Tokyo, Brasillia, the size of 130 feet...well the Tunguska space rock is similar in size, one little Tunguska space rock turned the air into fire, it created shockwaves Flattening 2,150 km² 830 sq mi of forest half the size of Rhode Island or each air-burst impact flattens a country the size of Luxembourg, huge trees flattened and broken like matches, instead of destroying Bennu you have instead wrecked human civilization by hitting humanity with multiple Tunguska events. Once the space rocks hits there could be chaos, stock markets crash, certain currency collapse, maybe are rumors of Fallout and panic spreading Near Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island once again...people abandoning their cars, fleeing cities and running for the hills escaping the fires and unrest.
.Given that Bennu poses no threat to Humanity or our planet Earth for the next 160 years if ever...maybe never, it might never ever hit us...Bennu has a 48% chance of falling into the Sun, it could be thrown out of the Solar system after coming near another planet / Asteroid, right now it poses no direct threat, so why would you do this?
Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-07-14 10:05:16)
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We have never blow up Asteroids, the only thing humanity has truly destroyed are other Satellites in ASAT weapons tests.
Do we really think things through or we watch too much Bruce Willis films, is that why we think we can send up some Oil dude and Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, in some flying Space Shuttle Flash Gordon ship and that's why we decide we must Nuke everything?
It is 490 m 1,610 ft in size, we don't know if it has stone or waters or iron, by Nuking it you might not destroy it you might turn it into a weird shape a big hole 100 meters to 328 feet on the side of its face and 30 meters deep weird cave valley in its center, we do not know what its internal make up is and how that energy inside would vent. You might just distort its shape and send it into a chaotic orbit, you might create thousands of other mini asteroids floating around our solar system that will shotgun blast other satellites of Earth, Moon and Mars crashing into them at 28,000 + mph or 45,000 these exploding satellites might cause a chain reaction and wipe out other satellites, by attempting to Nuke the asteroid you might simply create lots of other smaller and very dangerous bits, MIRVs and multiple hits from many space rocks about 130 feet (40 meters) in diameter, hitting or airbursting over NewYork, London, Tokyo, Brasillia, the size of 130 feet...well the Tunguska space rock is similar in size, one little Tunguska space rock turned the air into fire, it created shockwaves Flattening 2,150 km² 830 sq mi of forest, huge trees flattened and broken like matches, instead of destroying Bennu you have instead wrecked human civilization by hitting humanity with multiple Tunguska events. Once the space rocks hit there are rumors of Fallout and panic spreading Near Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island once again...people abandoning their cars, fleeing cities and running for the hills escaping the fires and unrest.
Given that Bennu poses no threat to Humanity or our planet Earth for the next 160 years if ever...maybe never, it might never ever hit us...Bennu has a 48% chance of falling into the Sun, it could be thrown out of the Solar system after coming near another planet / Asteroid, right now it poses no direct threat, so why would you do this?
Obviously it's an "extrema ratio": we only have to nuke it when it is established that it's in a course collision with Earth (and now it's not), otherwise we all end up like the dinosaurs.
If a colliding asteroid of the mass of Bennu has no solid core, a central explosion will result in a radial expansion. And if the job is done one or two years before the predicted collision, the debris cloud would disperse and we will only suffer some kind of meteor shower.
If instead the asteroid has a solid core, we better put the nuke as deep is possible and detonate it when the rotation of the asteroid put it in the trailing or in the leading hemisphere, to rise the aphelion, or lower the perihelion, in a way to modify it orbit and avoid the collision.
Last edited by Quaoar (2022-07-13 05:47:03)
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