From the “bigger worries than global warming” department:
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Yet another indication that Asteroids are a far more serious threat than climate change. NASA scientists have just in the last few weeks detected a previously unknown Asteroid, a quarter of a mile across, approaching at an unusually high speed of 35km / second, which is due to narrowly miss the Earth on 31st October this year. The asteroid will only approach within 1.3 lunar distances of Earth, so this particular body poses no threat – but in terms of the scale of the solar system, this upcomming event counts as a very near miss. This asteroid is a wakeup call, a reminder of just how vulnerable we are to catastrophic impacts, and how little warning we might receive if such a threat were detected.
According to NASA;
2015 TB145
2015 TB145 was discovered on 2015 Oct 10 by the Pan-STARRS I survey. The object will approach the Earth within 0.00326 au (1.3 Lunar distances or about 490 000 km) on 2015 Oct 31 at about 17:00 UT (10 AM PDT). The asteroid is in an extremely eccentric (~0.86) and high inclination (~40 deg) orbit. It has a Tisserand parameter of 2.937 hinting that it may be cometary in nature. Its absolute magnitude of 19.8 indicates that its diameter is probably within a factor of two of 320 meters. At closest approach the SNRs/run at DSS-14 are expected to be over 20000, so this should be one of the best radar targets of the year. We hope to obtain images with a range resolution as high as 2 m/pixel using DSS-13 to transmit and Green Bank (and possibly Arecibo) to receive. The flyby presents a truly outstanding scientific opportunity to study the physical properties of this object.
The encounter velocity is 35 km/s, which is unusually high.
This is the closest approach by a known object this large until 1999 AN10 approaches within 1 lunar distance in August 2027. The last approach closer than this by an object with H < 20 was by 2004 XP14 in July 2006 at 1.1 lunar distances.
2015 TB145 could reach 10th magnitude before sunrise on October 31 for observers in North America, but it will be close to the waning gibbous Moon and probably challenging to see with small telescopes. The asteroid will be in Ursa Major at the time of closest approach. After closest approch 2015 TB145 will be a daytime object and too close to the Sun to observe with optical telescopes.
Radar observations are planned at DSS-14, DSS-13, Arecibo, Green Bank, and elements of the VLBA. Observations may also occur with the UHF radar at Haystack.
Read more: http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroids/2009FD/2009FD_planning.html
If an unusually fast asteroid a quarter of a mile across struck an inhabited part of the world, the explosion would be many times larger than the half megaton Chelyabinsk meteor explosion, which was caused by a meteor with an estimated diameter of 55 ft. The explosion would be in the 10s of megatons, rivalling the largest atom bombs ever detonated – more than large enough to devastate an entire city.
How likely is such an impact? Thankfully really large impact events are very infrequent, though multi kiloton impact events are common – at least 26 such events have been detected since 2001, mostly in uninhabited regions. But there is no upper limit to the size of an impact event, and as this recent imminent near miss demonstrates, a serious threat could arise with very little warming.
What could be done to mitigate asteroid impact risk? At the very least better monitoring systems could be deployed, to try to provide at least some warning. Chelyabinsk received no warning when it was struck by a meteor. This asteroid was only detected a few weeks ago.
With enough warning people could be evacuated from likely impact zones. Even very large threats could potentially be addressed, if there was enough time to prepare.
In my opinion it is obscene that the world is spending countless billions chasing the imaginary perils of the climate dragon, while neglecting a far more serious threat to people’s lives.
When you have a problem, like an asteroid impact, that:
a) is bound to happen eventually
b) could result in the end of civilisation
c) could be prevented at relatively trivial cost given enough warning
it would seem utterly ludicrous, insane and stupid not to put in place reasonable preventative measures.
Clearly such measures are not in place. Had this asteroid been discovered to be on a collision course there would currently be nothing we could do about it, given a warning period of just a few weeks.
Yes, you are correct: quite simply the aspects of this potential bolide that are “worrisome” are three:
• (1) High inclination (from ecliptic)
• (2) High velocity (35,000 m/s … 125,000 km/hr … 3,000,000 km/day)
• (3) Large size (320 m diameter)
The consequence of (1) is that it wasn’t discovered in the part of space where we’re intensively ‘watching’. We aren’t watching high above the ecliptic plane of the solar system because statistically most NEAs (near Earth asteroids) come in from angles close to the ecliptic. The PANSTARRS automated night-scan system though has ‘discovered’ (it is thought) most of the larger ecliptic oriented near-Earth or Earth-crossing objects. Most … meaning over 50%.
Yet, the high inclination of this object indicates that there’s plenty of stuff coming in from the Oort Belt, which is thought to be nearly spherical around the Sun, and not particularly concentrated on the plane of the ecliptic. And, statistically, there is a nearly uniform distribution of one-pass comets (as measured by the SOHO Solar Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft) raining in from all angles relative to the ecliptic.
The nearness and brightness (size, albedo) of the thing is what made it detectable to the PANSTARRS observatories. Nearness brought it closer to the “observation ecliptic”, and brightness allowed the cursory or high-scan rate observations to catch it.
If we had only a few-week window of deflecting this sucker (should it have been determined to be an Earth impactor, and not a near-miss), I don’t think there’d be anything at all that we could cobble together. Maybe using a bunch of Russian and American ICBMs with upper stage modifications to exit Earth’s gravitational well, and loaded with old Cold War era 25 megaton thermonuclear weapons … to be detonated 1 km away from the thing … using Project Orion type ablative nuclear vectoring … could get it done.
But the number of alarmists that’d decry the possibility of breaking it up and raining down billions of smaller meteors … would be deafening.
And there’d only be weeks.
The UN can’t even figure out how to revector its blue-ribbon team of croissant bakers … to make cakes … in 2 weeks.
Just saying.
Fûcked.
GoatGuy
“But the number of alarmists that’d decry the possibility of breaking it up and raining down billions of smaller meteors … would be deafening.”
I don’t understand at all about that consensus, since increasing the number of incoming meteors with a (massive) breakup also increases the meteor surface area exposed to atmosphere resulting in a reduced amount of mass reaching the surface. Also the impact craters would be more numerous but smaller.
GoatGuy
Maybe using a bunch of Russian and American ICBMs with upper stage modifications to exit Earth’s gravitational well, and loaded with old Cold War era 25 megaton thermonuclear weapons … to be detonated 1 km away from the thing … using Project Orion type ablative nuclear vectoring … could get it done.
If the planning has already been done and launch schedules set, for various attack profiles yeah maybe. But this would have to be the greatest “time on target” ever attempted. Fratricide is going to be an issue.
And yes we would be truly f**ked
michael
If it’s broken up early enough, some percentage of the fragments will miss the earth entirely.
Not only would less mass reach the surface, but that mass would have been slowed down more than a single object would have been.
breaking it up and raining down billions of smaller meteors … would be deafening.
Breaking it up means every piece of it has a different vector than the whole of it had. Assuming you do it far enough away, then nothing hits the planet. Kind of like detonating a grenade at 10,000 ft. in the air. The chance of any single piece of it hitting you is close to zero. I say hit it with something really big and keep doing it till there’s nothing in the tunnel to Earth.
It sure does “seem utterly ludicrous, insane and stupid”. Celebrity obsession is evidently much more important. I tend to feel this is evidence the IQ “Bell Curve” is really bulging up on the low side of the chart. Is this due to the complete failure of the government education system to produce critical thinkers?
I am not too worried. Human civilization has 5000 years since the Bronze Age. That is 2000 generations. In that time we know that no civilization busting asteroid has hit the Earth or we would know it. The chances of it happening during my turn on Earth are exceedingly small.
I’ll take my chances. I am not buying your asteroid insurance.
Javier,
Did you mean 200 generations?
Yes, but for 4500+ years of that time the total number of people was small, and civilisation was more robust in the sense that it was less connected and inter-dependent. So, everyone in North America could have died in 1450 and it would have had little direct effect on those people in Europe. That is not the case now.
In addition, I am not sure that the argument that we should do nothing because no really major asteroid has yet hit is really a good argument. Even less so that we should do nothing because the odds of an impact are low in any particular generation.
A large asteroid impact is one of the few really major natural disasters that we have the power to prevent now. And the cost would be relatively tiny. Perhaps a few percent of global defence spending.
Can you imagine how dumb we will feel if tomorrow Europe, or North America or China got blown up by an asteroid and we knew we could have stopped it?
Because it hasn’t happened in 5K years, therefore it can’t happen? Or do you just care about whether it happens in your lifespan?
MarkW,
It’s called a ‘black swan’ event.
There are no black swans… until there are.
^There’s one^ now!
Quick, kill it! Then we won’t have to explain.
Thanx, Phil.
“..it would seem utterly ludicrous, insane and stupid not to put in place reasonable preventative measures…”
You’ve just succinctly described our present day leftist society.
One thing at a time. First, we have to put preventative measures in place to protect humanity from dangerous man-made global warming. Any money left over will be dedicated to asteroid detection and protection.
Don’t worry.
☭ = ☹
We have it under control.
Enough with the ironing 🙂
The takeaway is we will have a maximum of a two week warning. I rather doubt NASA or DARPA could pivot from climate scare routine to planet defense in that time frame. They could get dear leaders underground in time tough, while the climate scare band played on.
We shouldn’t be worried. It’s not like it’s something ‘we’ caused. It’s Nature. It’s all natural. We shouldn’t interfere with nature. It’s part of the delicate, unchanging, balance of nature and shouldn’t be messed with. I’d say we should only be concerned with ‘our’ impacts (uh, maybe I should use a different word there) on nature: You know; the parts per quadrillion increase in atmospheric ozone that’s due to us. This is nothing other than a big thingy from nature; I’d say let’s worship it.
“It’s all natural. We shouldn’t interfere with nature”
We all (should anyway) wear clothes to keep warm, is that interference?
Maybe I should put a sarc tag on my comment.
Sorry Tom, sounded like someone I work with.
Yes. All worship in the history of man stems from nature and just natural. Sad…. no doubt the religious nut balls would have a hay day with this one!
“Yes. All worship in the history of man stems from nature and just natural.”
Says who? Your imagination? Someone else’s imagination?
We could call it CNB–Catastrophic Natural Bolides. However, since the “A” for Anthropogenic is missing and government can’t tax us due to the omission, it will never gain traction. /sarc
Sad but true. To do something about this would actually require that the powers that be actually put in an honest day’s labor for an honest day’s pay instead of seeking advantage, and utilizing opportunism, deception, and connections to unjustly enrich their otherwise talentless selves. Deceptive CAGW opportunism is more up their alley.
We can generalize that expression into something more universal and useful: CNB = “Catastrophic Natural Bollocks”… /sarc, but not really.
Then after the impact they would say, “See! Climate Change! We told you so!”
See NASA’s Near Earth Object Program
Torino Impact Hazard Scale
Near Earth Asteroid Discovery Statistics
Sentry Risk Table
Hazardous NEO Technical Reviews
This may give an idea on how complex orbital mechanics can be. Going from three body to four five or more … Also if the object was originally a comet there may still be some gas pockets that can vent, thus slightly altering its expected orbit.
As for threat levels, anyone recall Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem
michael
Would it be correct to say that an impact by this body would do damage comparable to what would be expected from the Yellowstone super-volcano, or is its potential for damage less?
Off hand I would say the asteroid more than Yellowstone when you think about the energy hitting offshore and propagating to many shorelines as well as effects on atmosphere. And no one has any clue what effects come from an impact shock on continental plate boundaries with built up energy. Nor is there any information on oceanic volcano or sea mount slump-collapse from large shocks to the crust. Yellowstone by contrast is more of a regional smothering with ample warning and large atmospheric effects. Both are large effects though. It would be hot then very cold. I doubt the electric grid would be in very good shape and renewable power sources would falter. Leadership might also be in short supply.
“Leadership might also be in short supply.”
When is that NOT the case?
“It would be hot then very cold…Leadership might also be in short supply.”
I’ve been saying for year; buy insulation and buy ammo.
This relatively new crater on the moon is pretty cool. Before and after pictures..
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/810
After considering what a U.S. multi-agency response might look like, I would rather take my chances out in the open with no supplies.
I follow most days all sky fireball network and the near asteroid item on space weather.com. It might just be me, but there seems to a spike in the observation in fire balls and new near earth astroids in the last three weeks. 1612-1630. Something is different lately.
Could just be the neighborhood.
This could be quite inconvenient for the global climate agreement conference schedule.
So this one is not, as they say, it, but the next one will be?
We’re doomed.
We have to build a supply of large trampolines and position them in strategic locations all around the Earth.
Then, when one of these gets close, we calculate the trajectory and put one of the trampolines at the impact spot.
Okay, OKay…so they would have to be really big ones…I think I said that t start with.
We just need to hope they are more like bowling balls than like watermelons.
Ever see a watermelon dropped on a trampoline?
https://youtu.be/iJ0CVYUp-gE
Well, so maybe it would now matter after all!
We have to build a supply of large trampolines and position them in strategic locations all around the Earth.
Then, when one of these gets close, we calculate the trajectory and put one of the trampolines at the impact spot.
Okay, OKay…so they would have to be really big ones…I think I said that to start with.
We just need to hope they are more like bowling balls than like watermelons.
Ever see a watermelon dropped on a trampoline?
https://youtu.be/iJ0CVYUp-gE
Well, so maybe it would not matter after all!
Here’s quite a good analysis of the effects, from Imperial College.
http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/
You can play with the numbers yourself, but to summarise.
A hit on land would cause a crater about 4 to 5 km in diameter, and 500m deep.
If you were 100 km away, nothing all that dramatic would happen to you. At 10km, you’d suffer 3rd degree burns, and most structures would be destroyed by the blast, with winds of 873 metres/sec
The initial energy is equivalent to 3.5 a gigatonne explosion, but about a third of this is dissipated in the atmosphere.
The object starts to break up at a height of 92km – a few seconds before impact.
For an impact in the deep ocean, the tsunami generated will be up to 300 metres high at a distance of 10 km, dropping to 30 metres after 100 km
This is a interesting road to travel .
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601830404,00.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/asteroid-mysteriously-disintegrates-and-nasas-hubble-telescope-captures-it-on-camera/
http://www.universetoday.com/100021/laser-blasting-system-could-blow-up-big-asteroids/
Was it just a luck that Hubble was focused in on that part of space ?
I meant to add that they estimate the average interval between impacts of this size is 63000 years
Question:
Why does it break up before impact ?
I mean it could have succumbed to the tidal forces much sooner.
Have we ever sent a projectile thru the atmosphere at 30,000 mph, after the void of space it must be like hitting a brick wall (all those pesky atoms in a tight bunch).
Given a life span of 70 years, the chance of seeing an event of this magnitude in your lifetime is;
1 – (63000 – 1) / 63000) 70 years = 0.001
People take other risks of this magnitude seriously, for example, the probability of you dying in a house fire is 11 people per million per annum, or 0.000011 per year;
http://www.statista.com/statistics/183635/number-of-households-in-the-us/
The chance of dying in a house fire over 70 years is;
1 – (1 – 0.000011) 70 years = 0.0007
Granted there is a significantly lower risk that even a large asteroid impact, would kill any given individual. But the probability of people’s lives being disrupted by say a large impact Tsunami, or an impact which destroyed a large industrial area, seems worth taking seriously.
And of course there is the risk that an unexpected asteroid strike might be mistaken for a nuclear first strike. The East Mediterranean event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Eastern_Mediterranean_event occurred at a time of heightened tension between India and Pakistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001–02_India–Pakistan_standoff
If the East Mediterranean event had occurred a few hours later, near India or Pakistan, it could have been mistaken for a nuclear attack.
Thanks for that, I’ll sleep better tonight knowing I live within 2 miles of O’Hare airport.
Bet they’ll never think of turning it into a smoking hole in the ground.
Stop it! I don’t need any more mandatory insurance coverage.
That only estimates the chance of it hitting the earth in your lifetime.
To estimate your chance of being killed you must multiply by the chance of living within (say) 10 km of the impact. This would be approx 75/(500 million}, or about 0.00000015 times the 0.001
So about 10 to the -10th power.
With an earth population of about 6 billion, that’s close to one person per year.
Or more likely, nobody at all for 62999 years, and then 63000 people all at once.
Much worse than the lottery chances.
How about a campaign to get Asteroid Impact onto the Paris agenda?
Even if it never made it, it might force alarmists to prioritise their cases.
I know you’re not, but suggesting technology to put the asteroid impact directly on the Paris agenda can’t be all bad. /sarc, but not really.
Detailed and comprehensive study on all asteroid impacts on Earth within the last 10,000 years (Holocene), see
http://www.knowledgeminer.eu/climate_papers.html.
As of now: From 8500 BC to 3000 BC finished,
until year´s end, the part 4: 3000 BC to 1 AD will be available. JS.
Look up Burckle Crater (Indian Ocean) and The Holocene Impact Working Group for some interesting theories on mega tsunamis and the possible source of the various flood myths from the bible and Indian ocean areas from about 5000 years ago. Consider an ocean impact, superheated steam and a saturated atmosphere, and rain for forty days and forty nights?
ILLUMINATE with LASERS do we can SEE with BINOCULARS.
Ha! 1 1/3 lunar distances may be close from a relative standpoint, but from an actual standpoint it is missing the earth by a very, very large margin. This is much ado about nothing.
I agree Jbird. “earth grazer” is a bit hyperbolic. I believe I actually saw an “earth grazer” in the mid-eighties. Just happened to be outside latish one night and looked up, and there was this rather large appearing dark object cruising very high across the sky, with several “tongues” of fire emanating from it . . heading east to west, slightly to my south (here in N, Cal).
It’s was kinda shocking for a few seconds , , as I thought about what that thing might do . . but it didn’t appear to be descending, or getting any brighter . . just quietly drifted on over the coastal Mt. range till I couldn’t see it anymore. Never heard anything about it, and I doubt many people saw it . . maybe just me.
The really large events are addressed by building colonies on the Moon and maybe Mars once we learn how to live outside the Earth’s magnetic field.
These Final Hours
Don’t watch the trailer past 40 seconds if you want to see the movie. It’s really good.
I’d say it’s a bit more worrisome than globull warming/climate change.
“…another indication that Asteroids are a far more serious threat than climate change”
It’s probably because America didn’t ratify the Kyoto agreement.
“The explosion would be in the 10s of megatons, rivalling the largest atom bombs ever detonated – more than large enough to devastate an entire city.”
A bigger problem is the tonnes of junk that would be thrown into the upper atmosphere, causing serious cooling. Bigger than Krakatoa.