Asteroids Danger
The universe is a shooting gallery and
earth is the bullseye. The earth is
always under threat of a doomesday
asteroid that will wipe out civilization.
There are over one thousand
asteroids traveling toward earth and only three
quarters are accounted for.
Where are the other one forth? No one knows because
the government doesn't
fund NASA astrologists enough to cover the astroids. Just
one impact could
end civilization as we know it. No matter where it hits
everything would die,
even bacteria. To give an estimate how much is spent on
asteroid detection.
It is said to be less than the cost to operate a single
McDonald's
franchise. Total disaster would occur no matter where the asteroid
hit. Land,
sea it doesn't matter. Ocean impact would create a number of
things.
First, a Tsunami(tidal wave) would be created on impact. The wave
would be
hundreds for feet high traveling hundreds of miles per hour. It
would start to
slow down crashing ashore through all coastal city. Then,
finally wash up
hundreds for miles inland. " The mid-Atlantic Ocean impact
ranging from 400
meters to 5 kilometers in diameter. This would generate a
tsunami that would
sweep across the upper East Coast of the United States to
the Appalachian
Mountains."(Gottschalk 1) The blast of the impact would
equal a 300 gigaton
blast of T.N.T. Also, 2.4 seconds after impact, a small
fireball with a
temperature of 5000'C would sweep across long island. A land
fall strike would
cause total divistation. The asteroid would create a earth
trembling impact
causing earth quakes around the world. The binding flash
will show impact and
the crater would be twenty miles across. Then, a blanket
of dust and debris
would blanket the earth and block the sun's light. This
would occur for hundreds
of years and the climate would be disrupted. Global
killer no matter where it
hits. The end of the world is only 28 years, 10
months, 19 days, 1 hour, 45
minutes, and 39 seconds away. An asteroid named
XF11 is on route to hit earth
directly. October is the month and 2038 is the
year. Discovered by Jim Scotti on
December 6, 1997 while looking at star
with the Arizona Spacewatch Group. The
asteroid "is predicted to pass at a
rather comfortable distance of about
600,000 miles (about 960,000
kilometers) in 2028," "reported Dr.
Donald K. Yeomans and Dr. Paul W.
Chodas." (http://www.voicenet.com/~phycoid/XF11/1997XF11.html
1) Tim
Scotti disagrees saying is a matter of cover-up for national
security.
Spectulations go both ways, some say it's gonna hit others
disagree. The last
lines of defense are either blowing it up or using nuclear
power. The solutions
are to either destroy the asteroid or bounce it into
another orbit. Nuclear
weapons being the first and only line of defense. Even
though nuclear weapons
are forbiden in space by the Limited Test Ban Treaty
of 1963 and the Outer Space
Treaty of 1967. Exeptions hopefully will be
made. The bomb that will be used is
called the Neutron Bomb. It would create
"standoff bursts" that would
change the velocity and the orbit of the
asteroid.