Think you could make a version that explodes when it hits a planetary surface?
Think you could make a version that explodes when it hits a planetary surface?
Yeah i tried shooting the unpacked Nukes with HARP. I succesfully nuked the Deathstar!
I managed to get a Ummu somewhere in North America with the HARP from the moon. That was a fun shot.
I KNOW!!! (Blows up apophys)Awesome, Now we can drill down to 30 metres and blow up those pesky asteroids. Bruce Willis would be proud! :lol:
I KNOW!!! (Blows up apophys)
Yea! That's a good idea! So instead of one chunk flying close to Earth, we'll get many chunks hitting it! :thumbup:
At least we will get nice fireworks that way and I like fireworks. The bigger the better, there is no such thing as too big fireworks.
Yea, people wrongly believe it's a good idea to smash asteroids / comets to bits. But have you ever considered what happens?
Ok, so let's assume you've managed blowing the thing to dust, so no large chunks fall to the surface of Earth, but the energy's still there...
Now all those billion bits burn up in the atmosphere, each heating up to glow white hot. Now you have the entire sky lit up at 5000°C and your forests get set on fire and oceans start boiling...
... but yea, at least it didn't *hit* Earth.
Apophis is`t that big to cook the atmosphere. If it impacted in one piece it would generate only 500 - 1000 MT explosion. Suppose you blew it to bits no larger than few meters months before impact. Realistically most of the pieces would miss because blast would alter their orbit. Even if nearly all pieces hit they would impact over the many million square km area so all those 500 - 1000 MT would be dispersed into thousands of kiloton level airbursts scattered over huge area.