Armageddon... coming to a planet near you?

[RogerHealey]

Apparently there's a 40 to 80 metre asteroid (enough to make quite a mess) that has a 1.3% chance of hitting earth in December 2032. Now for what would potentially be a massive global event I think 1.3% chance is a fucking sight higher than I'd like. Imagine if you could get those odds on the lottery.

Apparently there was a near miss in 2004 which, when first detected, had odds of over 2% 

Time to get your punting bucket list sorted, boys...

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[Watts.E.Dunn]

They can with a suitable impactor be nudged off course if done soon enough. Its not a big one at all but the damage they can cause if due to the speed at which their travelling thats the real danger but if nudged soon enought all will be well.

They can be hit by nuclear missiles but that can cause other issues...

[mr.bluesky]

They can with a suitable impactor be nudged off course if done soon enough. Its not a big one at all but the damage they can cause if due to the speed at which their travelling thats the real danger but if nudged soon enought all will be well.

They can be hit by nuclear missiles but that can cause other issues...

This was done by NASA in 2022 when a refrigerator size craft was deliberately flown into an asteroid called Dimorphos which altered it's flight path by a few metres which would be enough for it to avoid a collision with earth if it was on a collision course. A strike with a nuclear missile would cause the asteroid to break up but then you would too many smaller fragments that would still cause a lot of damage over a wider area.

[RandomGuy99]

Elon will save us.

[superchamp]

Elon will save us.

Think of the possibilities if he could pick and choose where it hit though. 

[RandomGuy99]

Think of the possibilities if he could pick and choose where it hit though. 

Probably at the USAID HQ

[Stevelondon]

Don’t look up !

Apparently Trump has named it rather simply as Americas 51st state.

[Blackpool Rock]

Don’t look up !

Apparently Trump has named it rather simply as Americas 51st state.

What if there's life on it, illegal alien aliens 
Can you build a wall in space   

[Blackpool Rock]

This was done by NASA in 2022 when a refrigerator size craft was deliberately flown into an asteroid called Dimorphos which altered it's flight path by a few metres which would be enough for it to avoid a collision with earth if it was on a collision course. A strike with a nuclear missile would cause the asteroid to break up but then you would too many smaller fragments that would still cause a lot of damage over a wider area.

Don't worry, Watts just seems obsessed with Nuclear and he will say i'm obsessed with wind and solar, funnily enough there are other options to deflect it with wind and solar, you could attach something to it that acts as a sail and deflects it away using solar winds or you can apply a light coloured paint type substance to one side which then alters the spin of an asteroid and thereby it's path 

I'm not worried about this one as they often pick things up which have a small chance of earth impact but once they do the detailed maths it's found that it's a near miss of about 5 Million miles 

The ones i'm worried about are the ones they haven't spotted yet and find too late to do anything about 

[mr.bluesky]

The ones i'm worried about are the ones they haven't spotted yet and find too late to do anything about 

There was a report a couple of weeks ago that the boffins who track all these near earth objects spotted something.  It turned out to be the tesla car Elon Musk launched on one of the first falcon test rockets still in orbit which they originally lost track of 

[Watts.E.Dunn]

Mr Watts isin't "obsessed" by nuclear Mr BP Rock!. It in this case maybe the only thing we have avaiable to counter such a asteriod strike. These space rocks may not be that big but its the bloody speed their travelling at is the real problem. It might be possible that we could miss one and see it too late, or do something like an impactor or other deflection system. An atmoic bomb of just a few megatons would make a mess of a quite sizable rock. OK not that neat an answer and quite a possibility that some of the fallout may hit the earth but better some bits a metre or so in size than a hundred metres or so.

That could result in the extinction of the human race with all the crap blocking out the sunlight so that bugger all can grow. For the first time we can now defeat this threat to our planet!..

[cunningman]

An atmoic bomb of just a few megatons would make a mess of a quite sizable rock.

I am sceptical. If you could embed it into the rock it would blow it apart but airburst isn't really a thing in space unless you look for EMP kill (on a rock???).  Shattering it might be risky.  Persuading it to go elsewhere is safer, the course deviation needed is not large unless rally last minute.  Or hour, at most.

[Watts.E.Dunn]

EMP or Electro Magnetic Pluse is a very strong radio wave energy, usually or would be rather!, used in a high altiude burst to interfere with electonics and communication systems over a large area.

Not really applicable here! We're discussing a rock thats maybe some 100 metres across a few kilotons would cause that to shatter or melt even.

In effect its now a load of small parts, particles atoms even thats likely to fly in all directions some may collide with the earth but too small and slow to do any damage, most likely to burn up in the atmosphere.

Note the "too slow" as the main energy damaging effect is the tremoundous speed they travel at and aren't slowed in space that being a vacumm of course.

Take for instance a bullet, by itself not to cause any damage but travlling at the speed when fired from a gun very damaging!.....

[Squire Haggard]

Luckily, this landed in a remote area. Some people might not have heard about this.

''The explosion is generally attributed to a meteor air burst, the atmospheric explosion of a stony asteroid about 50–60 metres (160–200 feet)
The asteroid approached from the east-south-east, probably with a relatively high speed of about 27 km/s; 98,004 km/h (Mach 80). Though the incident is classified as an impact event, the object is thought to have exploded at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres (3 to 6 miles) rather than hitting the Earth's surface, leaving no impact crater.

The Tunguska event is the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history, though much larger impacts occurred in prehistoric times. An explosion of this magnitude would be capable of destroying a large metropolitan area.''

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[cunningman]

EMP or Electro Magnetic Pluse is a very strong radio wave energy, usually or would be rather!, used in a high altiude burst to interfere with electonics and communication systems over a large area.

Not really applicable here!

That was my point.  A proximity burst would not be anything like as effective as on earth in atmosphere.

[Watts.E.Dunn]

I think that would be academic to say the least, they are now saying it will miss the earth and hit the Moon! that should be very unteresting!!

[mr.bluesky]

I think that would be academic to say the least, they are now saying it will miss the earth and hit the Moon! that should be very unteresting!!

That could be more dangerous 😳
Imagine if it shattered the moon into large fragments or even knocked it out of Earth's orbit ( remember the tv series Space 1999 ) 

[Blackpool Rock]

I think that would be academic to say the least, they are now saying it will miss the earth and hit the Moon! that should be very unteresting!!

This article is saying the risk has almost doubled to 2.3% but no mention of hitting the moon, do you have a link to the moon article 

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[mr.bluesky]

This has now been downgraded to a 0.005% chance of collision with earth in 2032. ( or 1 in 20,000 ) Phew thank fuck for that I was having sleepless nights about this. I was about to start digging an underground bunker in my back garden