Asteroid Headed for Earth, Possibly Las Vegas

So, there's a "football field sized" asteroid headed for Earth. It's known as 2006 QV89. They say it only has a 1 in 7000 chance of hitting earth and probably won't get closer than 4.2 million miles to Earth. For comparison, the Moon is 238,000 miles away, so it will likely be well outside the orbit of the Moon. But, like Las Vegas, this is based on odds of the calculations being correct, meaning there is a possibility the calculations might not be correct too. The European Space Agency (ESA) calls these NEO's, or Near Earth Objects.

Asteroid

In June of 2018 NASA released a report with plans on how to deal with NEO's. This report recommends, among other things, to develop technology to "deflect" NEO's away from Earth.

This brings up a fundamental question...

Let's say (hypothetically) that mankind is able to develop a technology to deflect NEO asteroids and comets away from Earth. These technologies will always have the potential to not work as planned. In other words, they have Las Vegas type odds around their success.

So, on the one hand we have an asteroid which may, or may not, impact Earth. And, on the other hand, we have a technology which may, or may not, work as intended.

Intuition tells us that the longer period of time we have to deflect an inbound object the higher the probability of success, right? More time means further distances from Earth. Conversely, the accuracy of predictions of the path of an inbound object improve as the object approaches Earth (i.e. less distance).

This new asteroid deflection technology may actually go horribly wrong and actually direct an asteroid which was going to miss Earth to impact with it instead. Again, this is a possibility and therefore there are odds of this happening. We can play around with asteroids which have no possibility of hitting Earth to develop this technology, but these asteroids will perform differently than ones which are influenced by the mass of Earth. So, we will only know for sure the technology works properly when we try to deflect an asteroid which really is headed towards Earth.

Now to the question...

So at what point do we play God and make a decision which could affect all mankind on planet Earth?

Obviously, the decision is based on the mass / size of the asteroid in question, but it is also based on the odds of it actually impacting Earth as well. Do we make the decision when the odds are 1 in 500, or 1 in 50...or 1 in 2?

And what if something goes wrong, and the asteroid definitely does impact Earth when there were still odds it might not have if we'd done nothing?

Talk about "All-In", wow, puts a new perspective on that term doesn't it?

So Las Vegas and its odds definitely figure heavily into the defense of Earth from asteroids and ELE (Extermination Level Event).

Thoughts?

One in seven thousand odds? We should have a lottery with that, better odds than winning the powerball for sure. Better odds than winning some of the progressive slot machines too.

Strangely enough, I was checking out footage of Earth Grazing Fireballs yesterday, would be awe-inspiring to have witnessed some of these:





Additionally, been saying for years that Asteroid detection has always been bad, Chelyabinsk, Russia proved that, as did Asteroid 2018 GE3

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Thanks for that man...
I live here dude, well Henderson but still close though.

I will have my family be prepared to have a camera ready for it. If it comes to that.
Very cool info I must say and thanks for sharing! Not being sarcastic with that.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

For me, it is simple. We play god when it comes to planet killers. For pretty much everything else we should simply prepare as well as possible.

This can be revised when we get to the stage of "tried and tested" solutions (maybe get practice on ones near Pluto!).

originally posted by: Allaroundyou
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Thanks for that man...
I live here dude, well Henderson but still close though.

I will have my family be prepared to have a camera ready for it. If it comes to that.
Very cool info I must say and thanks for sharing! Not being sarcastic with that.

If an asteroid that size hits Vegas and you're in Henderson I doubt if you will be around sharing pics.

Sorry.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I think with all the money spent in the name of defence surely some can go to to the actual defence of the earth from such a threat?

No need to worry, do we even have the tech to nudge a small object much less a planet killer, doubtful and we likely can't identify all the NEO'S anyway. One eventually will sneak in the back door in an area we can't see or expect it to come from

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I don't get it we can pin point a landing on Mars but they cant pin point the Asteroids path ? I wonder how much damage one that size would cause .

originally posted by: Allaroundyou
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Thanks for that man...
I live here dude, well Henderson but still close though.

I will have my family be prepared to have a camera ready for it. If it comes to that.
Very cool info I must say and thanks for sharing! Not being sarcastic with that.

I call dibs on any rocks over 5 grams unless it's over seven hills good luck getting any of them to let u poke around

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Curious why you would claim its headed for Las Vegas?

Then I may give you my thoughts.

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Curious why you would claim its headed for Las Vegas?

Then I may give you my thoughts.

He means it's headed for Las Vegas in the figurative sense -- i.e., making the odds associated with an asteroid hitting earth in the Las Vegas style of odds-making.

originally posted by: Gargoyle91
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I don't get it we can pin point a landing on Mars but they cant pin point the Asteroids path ? I wonder how much damage one that size would cause .

Because they are able to make corrections to the flight of a spacecraft heading to Mars using the thrusters on board. They don't have that ability for an asteroid.

If they sent a probe to Mars with only the trajectory it had when it left earth (i.e., not making course corrections along the way), then where it would land on Mars would not be known. In fact, it may not land on Mars at all without those corrections.

Another thing they have going for them with a spacecraft is that they can tell almost exactly where it is by using the active signal from its on-board radio. An asteroid has no active radio, and visual or passive radar measurements are not as exact. Plus we know the precise size, shape, and mass of our own spacecraft. The size, shape and mass of an asteroid is known with far less precision.


And even with all of that -- the ability to know exactly where it is in space and the ability to make fine-tune course corrections for a spacecraft headed to Mars, they STILL can't pinpoint a landing on Mars. Take for example the Mars Science Lab/Curiosity Rover. The final "landing ellipse" (final after all course corrections were made) was 12 miles long by 5 miles wide. That was the size of the area in which Curiosity might possibly land.

The uncertainty of the landing ellipse comes from the fact that Mars has an atmosphere, and atmosphere's are not homogeneous things. Variations in the atmosphere would cause the craft to slightly drift this way and that in unpredictable ways as it is entering the atmosphere.


Having said that, the landing ellipse is not relevant to pinpointing a trajectory, which is a lot more predictable.

However, to make those predictions, exact position, size, shape, and tumbling characteristics of the asteroid must be known. And finding those exact characteristics is the difficult part.

Football field size? At a low enough velocity, that's in missile defense territory. Aka, small enough to be feasibly vaporized by man made weaponry.

Remember, the one in Armageddon, was the size of Texas. A single football field asteroid is something we could damage control, with surface to air. Not a big deal.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I trust the celestial bodies to protect me from asteroids.

But weaponized asteroids pose a real threat to humanity.
-True story-

Sigh, do y'all need me to get Bruce Willis' phone number? he and Ben can get it done.

a reply to: network dude

Bruce Willis would not even need lasers or rockets,

Just a big slingshot, so he could get close enough to punch the asteroid to pieces

Some people need to slow down and actually read posts!

But a 1 in 7000 chance is a tad scary in asteroid land.

It reminds me of the Carol Rosin claims about Von Braun warning about fake threats so the military industrial complex can weaponize space (and next will be fake aliens a la Bluebeam)...

with asteroids, we don't need weapon systems. Rather, we need technology that will move large masses 'cause "pew pew" will just make shotgun pellets out of a bullet, if we could even blow a large asteroid apart.

But really, it's a pretty good reason to be space faring... bad stuff happens to planets and it would be nice to have a fallback plan.

a reply to: Archivalist
I agree. I am very bad at spelling but the metor that exploded over that Russian city that wounded alot of people 2 to 4 yrs back looked like it was hit by something right before it crumbled and went boom. im sure we can protect earth a little but in the case of this one they didn't see it coming....not even 1hour.something about the sun hid it.. I think we should use Lagrange point asteroid radar and this alone could help us use lasers and the new class of hyper middles to hit these but much sooner....this 1 got by us. it hurt alot of people.windows broke ....things fell. frying a ant with a magnifying glass theory could also apply at the Lagrange points in space. we need things on the moon s dark side same as earth protection but helium 3 powered lasers...