[meteorite-list] Another awful meteorite-related TV event

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 20:16:07 -0500
Message-ID: <FDD98533E13C4FDAB0CF380C8A4FA945_at_ATARIENGINE2>

Hi, List,

To quantify that impact, I went and ran the numbers
through the online Impact Calculator that uses the
Jay Melosh model:
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

If 216 Kleopatra is 220 km x 100 km x 100 km, its
volume is 17,278,875.96 km^3 or a total of (take a
deep breath) 1,778,875,960,000,000 m^3. That's
1.7 quadrillion cubic meters and its mass would be at
least 3.5 quadrillion metric tons. (Dogbone and Potato
asteroids have lots of voids and a high porosity.)

No, wait! It's 114 Kassandra? Get your Apocalypses
straight, people!

The volume of 114 Kassandra is less than Kleopatra:
523,598,644,700,000 cubic meters. The mass of
114 Kassandra, if rock, has to be at a minimum of
1,500,000,000,000,000 tons, although some sources
say it's only 1,000,000,000,000,000. That big number
is a Quadrillion tons, in case you want to know.

OK, it's Kassandra! Smaller, lighter. Really puny.
I gave it an intercept velocity of 47 km/s, a little
slow for an eccentric orbit from the Asteroid Zone,
and an incidence angle of 45 degrees.

The energy of the collision is 1.20 x 10^24 Joules
or 268,000,000 MegaTons TNT. The Calculator says
"The average interval between impacts of this size
somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years
is 360,000,000 years."

That energy is the equivalent of an explosion created
by detonating a nuclear arsenal 1800 times bigger
than the entire nuclear arsenals of all the nations of
the world -- at once.

The final crater diameter is 39.5 km or 24.5 miles;
its final depth is 0.895 km or 0.556 miles. That seems
oddly small for something so big. Why is that? Well,
the Calculator says that the final crater is replaced
by a large, circular melt province. The volume of the
target melted or vaporized is 6410 cubic km or 1540
cubic miles. The melt volume is 2.87 times the
crater volume

If 114 Kassandra hit Los Angeles, you'd probably be
alright (for a while) if you were in New York City (or
Boston). You'd be alright, that is, if you can withstand
the shock wave which, at that distance, would have
a wind velocity of 140 mph, or a hurricane-level
Force Nine Gale on the Beaufort Scale. Where I live,
it'll be over 205 mph.

The real problem, I suspect, is in the vaporization of
a substantial percentage of that "melt province." If
10% of the rock vaporized, or 1.5 trillion tons of rock
vapor would be distributed very quickly through the
atmosphere at temperatures of more than 2000
degrees F. That quantity of rock vapor amounts to
about 20,000 tons of rock vapor per square mile
of the Earth's surface.

The Impact Calculator does not discuss the contribution
of the asteroid to the mass of rock vapor. I would suggest
that at least 1% of it would survive as "mere" rock vapor
(instead of plasma) -- that's an additional ten trillion tons,
raising the distribution to 110,000 tons of rock vapor per
square mile of the Earth's surface (about 190,000,000
square miles).

I suggest a very study, fireproofed umbrella would
be a good idea if you plan on going out...

This is an impact at least 30 to 50 times worse than
the Chicxulub Impact which, it has been suggested,
burned most of the vegetation off the planet with its
rock vapor plume. 114 Kassandra's effect could only
be characterized as the "Krispy Kritter" impact.

It sounds like a a lousy environment in which to
stage a mini-series. But... That's Entertainment!



Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
------ Original Message -----
From: <lebofsky at lpl.arizona.edu>
To: <MeteorHntr at aol.com>
Cc: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 12:03 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Another awful meteorite-related TV event


If Kleopatra were to hit the Earth (at least that is what I get out of
the
main page), we would be in big trouble. For those of you who do not
remember, 216 Kleopatra, thanks to radar observations, looks very much
like a big dog bone, 220 kilometers long and 100 kilometers across.

Larry

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Darren Garrison" <cynapse at charter.net>
To: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 11:38 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Another awful meteorite-related TV event


> http://www.movieweb.com/news/NEn3LrswY8Zyro
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Received on Wed 01 Jul 2009 09:16:07 PM PDT