Archived material Access restricted Article
Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Wed 02/12/2025 View Tue 02/11/2025 View Mon 02/10/2025 View Sun 02/09/2025 View Sat 02/08/2025 View Fri 02/07/2025 View Thu 02/06/2025
1
2025-02-12 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Scientists warn of possible collision of asteroid 2024 YR4 with the Moon
Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.
Posted by badanov 2025-02-12 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11151 views ]  Top

#1 SMOD has entered the chat.
Posted by Rex Mundi 2025-02-12 02:01||   2025-02-12 02:01|| Front Page Top

#2 

OK, the 1st thing that popped into my mind was.
Did I miss a new Hollywood Disaster Movie up for release?

But now, somewhere I am sure, given this 6-year window.
There are sudden Self-Made Experts and Doomsayer Pimps already scripting, planning and rehearsing their overhyped narratives of an Asteroid Moon impact inducing a Climate Change.

All of which will grease the way, so that the DC Talking Heads and UN can waste $$$ Billions claiming to take steps to prevent it.


Any bets, around year 4, they just happen to update the claim so that the impact area will be on the Dark Side of the Moon?

Posted by NN2N1 2025-02-12 07:31||   2025-02-12 07:31|| Front Page Top

#3 "There is a possibility that it could eject some material that could fall to Earth, but I highly doubt it would pose a serious threat," the publication quoted Rankin as saying.

I am going to use that line in my next movie. It is called "Postcard from Tunguska".
Posted by SteveS 2025-02-12 08:57||   2025-02-12 08:57|| Front Page Top

#4 Splitting of the Moon

Posted by Skidmark 2025-02-12 11:02||   2025-02-12 11:02|| Front Page Top

#5 SMOD has entered the chat
Posted by DarthVader 2025-02-12 11:59||   2025-02-12 11:59|| Front Page Top

#6 Scientist gives chilling update on the 'city-destroying' asteroid heading towards Earth - and warns NASA has left it too late to deflect it
Posted by Skidmark 2025-02-12 12:33||   2025-02-12 12:33|| Front Page Top

#7 by 2032 we should have adequate technology to take care of this in the very unlikely case that the asteroid actually is on a collision course
Posted by Lord Garth 2025-02-12 19:39||   2025-02-12 19:39|| Front Page Top

#8 There are two parts to the problem of stopping or deflecting an asteroid. The first is getting there. SpaceX has solved that part and unlike NASA, they will not need 2 years lead time to schedule a launch.

The second part is what to do when you get there. Sometimes asteroids are big chunks of busted-up planet, but more often they are just flying piles of gravel and rocks. A big chunk can be deflected by pushing on it. Pushing a gravel pile just spreads it out. No doubt clever solutions exist, but the time to start thinking about them is now.
Posted by SteveS 2025-02-12 20:25||   2025-02-12 20:25|| Front Page Top

#9 Yes, SteveS, but a bunch of gravel will break into its constituent pieces when it hits the atmosphere, resulting in mostly meteorites that will burn up before they reach the ground — impossible to deflect but mostly not a risk to life at the bottom of the gravity well, and even the larger chunks are less of a threat than Daily Mail hysterics are going on about.
Posted by trailing wife 2025-02-12 20:59||   2025-02-12 20:59|| Front Page Top

#10 I am not so sure about the physics of that, tw. I think the answer is "It depends".

When a meteor enters the atmosphere at high speed, friction with the air quickly heats the surface above the vaporization point of rock and makes that pretty streak of light in the sky. A small chunk will burn up in the atmosphere. A big chunk will continue to ablate until it hits the ground and vaporizes explosively, leaving a characteristic round crater, like Barringer Crater in Arizona.

The pile of gravel scenario is more like a dust explosion in a flour mill. You have lots of little bits with a whole lot of surface area compared to a chunk. Air friction being a surface phenomena, the little bits all vaporize at once and you get an air burst like the Chelyabinsk event in Russia in 2013 where the blast wave caused a lot of property damage.

If you could break up the gravel pile far enough from Earth so it did not enter the atmosphere all at once, I would expect it to behave as you describe.

The Tunguska meteor in 1908 was another airburst that make a big mess without ever hitting the ground.
Posted by SteveS 2025-02-12 22:43||   2025-02-12 22:43|| Front Page Top

#11 Pttttttthhhhhp! You’re better at the physics stuff than I, SteveS. Bummer. I was enjoying not worrying about even the tiny probability of likelihood.
Posted by trailing wife 2025-02-12 23:44||   2025-02-12 23:44|| Front Page Top

#12 Disaster! Vast, swole up on 'roids,
Are our tabloids just fit for da boids?
Could DM's hysterics
Not be ink-stained clerics
Or mass-manufacturing Freuds? ;-)
Posted by Elmaiter Thinegum9610 2025-02-12 23:58||   2025-02-12 23:58|| Front Page Top

23:58 Elmaiter Thinegum9610
23:44 trailing wife
22:43 SteveS
22:33 Anomalous Sources
22:32 Anomalous Sources
21:09 trailing wife
20:59 trailing wife
20:25 SteveS
20:16 swksvolFF
19:39 Lord Garth
19:23 Gluter Spawn of the Algonquins6504
19:07 Shererong Jainter4985
19:03 Frank G
18:57 Chantry
18:45 Procopius2k
18:35 Skidmark
18:30 Skidmark
18:21 Beavis
18:16 Skidmark
18:15 Skidmark
18:08 Frank G
17:55 Frank G
17:50 Frank G
17:44 Skidmark









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com