[meteorite-list] Scientist Warns Massive Asteroid Could HitEarthin 2182

From: countdeiro at earthlink.net <countdeiro_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:13:14 -0400 (EDT)
Message-ID: <3184029.1280380394861.JavaMail.root_at_wamui-junio.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Sterling,

With the understanding that the impactor is of the size you described in your last.

Could there be significant property damage and human casualties outside the 100 mile diameter from the fall of matter propelled to great heights and trajectories?

Is it plausible that large quantities of ejecta could be propelled into low earth, rapidly decaying orbits and re-enter to cause significant secondary impact damage vicariously over the earth?

Do you think some material could escape the earth's gravity to become meteoroids?

Count Deiro
IMCA 3536

-----Original Message-----
>From: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
>Sent: Jul 28, 2010 11:17 PM
>To: Stuart McDaniel - Action Shooting Supply <actionshooting at carolina.rr.com>, Thunder Stone <stanleygregr at hotmail.com>, meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Scientist Warns Massive Asteroid Could HitEarthin 2182
>
>List, Stuart,
>
>An eight-mile complex crater with a depth of
>about a half-mile. Will take 100% casualties out to
>about 35 miles and 70% casualties out to 60 miles.
>High-speed ejecta 1 cm and up will reach out to
>about 100 miles. Within the inner 75-mile-diameter
>circle, expect the destruction of almost everything
>and the death of almost everybody.
>
>Even at 60 miles away, the fireball will deliver about
>4 megajoules per square meter for about 3.5 minutes,
>enough to produce deep third degree burns, and
>cause trees and grass to ignite, as well as wood and
>part-wood structures. Masonry structures would
>collapse from the overpressure; steel structures
>would survive best.
>
>An ocean strike would form a smaller crater in the
>seafloor but the thermal effects would be about the
>same (actually a little worse). The tsunami would
>be between 250 and 450 feet high. It would be
>world-wide, reach far inland in some areas, and
>would likely circle the globe more than once.
>
>Either a land or sea strike would likely result in
>comparable damages. Numbers would depend on
>the population and structural density of the
>area. Middle of the Sahara? Thousands. South
>China Coast? Tens of millions.
>
>Highly unlikely that any of the materials you
>might gather after the region of the crater stopped
>glowing would be part of the impactor, almost all
>of which would vaporize. Terrestrial fragments
>would dominate the region.
>
>
>Sterling K. Webb
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Stuart McDaniel - Action Shooting Supply"
><actionshooting at carolina.rr.com>
>To: "Thunder Stone" <stanleygregr at hotmail.com>;
><meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
>Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 9:03 PM
>Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Scientist Warns Massive Asteroid Could
>HitEarthin 2182
>
>
>Not a mathematician are you?? LOL..........it's 172 years. Bet that will
>make a nice strewn field!!!
>
>Stuart McDaniel
>Lawndale, NC
>Secr.,
>Cleve. Co. Astronomical Society
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Thunder Stone" <stanleygregr at hotmail.com>
>To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
>Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 6:23 PM
>Subject: [meteorite-list] Scientist Warns Massive Asteroid Could Hit
>Earthin
>2182
>
>
>
>Wow - that's only 72 years from now... Don't think I'll be around
>
>Greg S.
>
>
>http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/28/massive-asteroid-hit-earth-warn-scientists/?test=faces
>
>
>
>Scientist Warns Massive Asteroid Could Hit Earth in 2182
>
>A large asteroid in space that has a remote chance of slamming into the
>Earth would be most likely hit in 2182, if it crashed into our planet at
>all, a new study suggests.
>
>The asteroid, called 1999 RQ36, has about a 1-in-1,000 chance of
>actually
>hitting the Earth, but half of that risk corresponds to potential
>impacts in
>the year 2182, said study co-author Mar?a Eugenia Sansaturio of the
>Universidad de Valladolid in Spain.
>
>Sansaturio and her colleagues used mathematical models to determine the
>risk
>of asteroid 1999 RQ36 impacting the Earth through the year 2200. They
>found
>two potential opportunities for the asteroid to hit Earth in 2182.
>
>The research is detailed in the science journal Icarus.
>
>The asteroid was discovered in 1999 and is about 1,837 feet (560 meters)
>across. A space rock this size could cause widespread devastation at an
>impact site in the remote chance that it hit Earth, according to a
>recent
>report by the National Academy of Sciences.
>
>
>Scientists have tracked asteroid 1999 RQ36's orbit through 290 optical
>observations and 13 radar surveys, but there is still some uncertainty
>because of the gentle push it receives from the so-called Yarkovsky
>effect,
>researchers said.
>
>The Yarkovsky effect, named after the Russian engineer I.O. Yarkovsky
>who
>proposed it around 1900, describes how an asteroid gains momentum from
>thermal radiation that it emits from its night side. Over hundreds of
>years,
>the effect's influence on an asteroid's orbit could be substantial.
>
>Sansaturio and her colleagues found that through 2060, the chances of
>Earth
>impacts from 1999 RQ36 are remote, but the odds increase by a magnitude
>of
>four by 2080 as the asteroid's orbit brings it closer to the Earth.
>
>The odds of impact then dip as the asteroid would move away, and rise in
>2162 and 2182, when it swings back near Earth, the researchers found.
>It's a
>tricky orbital dance that makes it difficult to pin down the odds of
>impact,
>they said.
>
>"The consequence of this complex dynamic is not just the likelihood of a
>comparatively large impact, but also that a realistic deflection
>procedure
>(path deviation) could only be made before the impact in 2080, and more
>easily, before 2060," Sansaturio said in a statement.
>
>After 2080, she added, it would be more difficult to deflect the
>asteroid.
>
>"If this object had been discovered after 2080, the deflection would
>require
>a technology that is not currently available," Sansaturio said.
>"Therefore,
>this example suggests that impact monitoring, which up to date does not
>cover more than 80 or 100 years, may need to encompass more than one
>century."
>
>By expanding the timeframe for potential impacts, researchers would
>potentially identify the most threatening space rocks with enough time
>to
>mount deflection campaigns that are both technologically and financially
>feasible, Sansaturio said.
>
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Received on Thu 29 Jul 2010 01:13:14 AM PDT