Potential Epic Comet Collision with Mars in 2014 *UPDATE: VIDEO ON FIRST POST* | |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 17897516 United States 02/25/2013 01:18 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Dr. Astro (OP) Senior Forum Moderator User ID: 4211721 United States 02/25/2013 01:21 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Very interesting news that's for sure. Will be interesting to see if we can get a front row seat of potential collision when the time comes. Quoting: The Dudester At the same time, it should serve as a wake up call to all governments on earth that one day in the not so distant future be on the recieving end of such a collision. Something needs to be done NOW !!!!! Agreed. If this doesn't wake people up, nothing will. Nothing will. They will talk about it on TV for a couple of days and then it will be right back to celebrity gossip. We need to be building and testing out solutions NOW. We can't wait until one is heading our way. It will be too late by then. The shit has to be built, tested, and ready to go. *sigh* we're screwed. Sad but true. From now on, whenever someone whines to me about spending money on space exploration, I will simply cite this comet and tell them to go look up what it would do. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 2230505 United States 02/25/2013 01:21 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 30665644 United States 02/25/2013 01:22 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Since C/2013 A1 is a hyperbolic comet and moves in a retrograde orbit, its velocity with respect to the planet will be very high, approximately 56 km/s. With the current estimate of the absolute magnitude of the nucleus M2 = 10.3, which might indicate the diameter of over 50 km, the energy of impact might reach the equivalent of staggering 2×10¹º megatonnes! This kind of event can leave a crater 500 km across and 2 km deep. Such an event would overshadow even the famous bombardment of Jupiter by the disintegrated comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in July 1994, which by some estimates was originally 15 m in diameter. Quoting: catsscratchfever [link to spaceobs.org] Wow. I plugged those numbers into the Solar System Collision page ( [link to janus.astro.umd.edu] ) and came up with this: Energy Released: 19 billion MT (MegaTons of TNT) (Energy needed to Boil Earth's Oceans: 2000 billion MT) QUAKE!! Magnitude 12.5 (largest recorded Earthquake: 9.5) Crater Diameter: 659.0 km Crater Depth: 4.1 km Collisions this energetic occurred only early in the Solar System's history. Staggering, isn't it? Poor Martians. And this was just discovered last month and it might hit next year? Only 1 year warning. Just think if it was heading our way, there is nothing we could do about it. That's big enough to wipe out all life on Earth huh? I wonder if we have anything actually finished yet, i mean they have been working on ideas for moving asteroids and such, i wonder if they have one actually done and ready to test? Would be a perfect opportunity to get it up there and see if it helped move it enough to stop a collision. Or maybe its already too late to implement ...could take awhile to nudge it off course, don't know how long but i don't know if we would have time to get one up and working to the comet to try it out. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 30665644 United States 02/25/2013 01:24 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Very interesting news that's for sure. Will be interesting to see if we can get a front row seat of potential collision when the time comes. Quoting: The Dudester At the same time, it should serve as a wake up call to all governments on earth that one day in the not so distant future be on the recieving end of such a collision. Something needs to be done NOW !!!!! Agreed. If this doesn't wake people up, nothing will. Nothing will. They will talk about it on TV for a couple of days and then it will be right back to celebrity gossip. We need to be building and testing out solutions NOW. We can't wait until one is heading our way. It will be too late by then. The shit has to be built, tested, and ready to go. *sigh* we're screwed. Sad but true. From now on, whenever someone whines to me about spending money on space exploration, I will simply cite this comet and tell them to go look up what it would do. They have been trying to warn up for decades that we could get hit...that the odds were getting higher for a collision with each passing day..but nobody listened..until now. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 17897516 United States 02/25/2013 01:27 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Dr. Astro (OP) Senior Forum Moderator User ID: 4211721 United States 02/25/2013 01:27 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | ... Quoting: BoxerLvr Wow. I plugged those numbers into the Solar System Collision page ( [link to janus.astro.umd.edu] ) and came up with this: Energy Released: 19 billion MT (MegaTons of TNT) (Energy needed to Boil Earth's Oceans: 2000 billion MT) QUAKE!! Magnitude 12.5 (largest recorded Earthquake: 9.5) Crater Diameter: 659.0 km Crater Depth: 4.1 km Collisions this energetic occurred only early in the Solar System's history. Staggering, isn't it? Poor Martians. And this was just discovered last month and it might hit next year? Only 1 year warning. Just think if it was heading our way, there is nothing we could do about it. That's big enough to wipe out all life on Earth huh? I wonder if we have anything actually finished yet, i mean they have been working on ideas for moving asteroids and such, i wonder if they have one actually done and ready to test? Would be a perfect opportunity to get it up there and see if it helped move it enough to stop a collision. Or maybe its already too late to implement ...could take awhile to nudge it off course, don't know how long but i don't know if we would have time to get one up and working to the comet to try it out. Right now, our best hypothetical deflection techniques are intended for small asteroids that are years out from impact. This is a totally different level of trouble, and unlike the hollywood movies, could not be solved by stuffing a shuttle with Bruce Willis and a nuke. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 30665644 United States 02/25/2013 01:30 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Since C/2013 A1 is a hyperbolic comet and moves in a retrograde orbit, its velocity with respect to the planet will be very high, approximately 56 km/s. With the current estimate of the absolute magnitude of the nucleus M2 = 10.3, which might indicate the diameter of over 50 km, the energy of impact might reach the equivalent of staggering 2×10¹º megatonnes! This kind of event can leave a crater 500 km across and 2 km deep. Such an event would overshadow even the famous bombardment of Jupiter by the disintegrated comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in July 1994, which by some estimates was originally 15 m in diameter. Quoting: catsscratchfever [link to spaceobs.org] Good find, thanks. They're clearly using a different formula to calculate the size that goes based on nuclear magnitude rather than total mag. I like that. I find if I use the formula for a short period comet I get a size of about 36.5 km. Not really directly applicable to a long period comet like this though. I've always had an idea that it was a comet that killed Mars in the first place, came to close and either hit or so close it just ripped away its atmosphere..everything including its oceans just floating off into space. Wouldn't it be ironic if this was the same comet that almost hit it before ..the Mars killer..but this time it could smack it dead on. |
Dr. Acula Senior Forum Moderator User ID: 87848 United States 02/25/2013 01:31 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
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Anonymous Coward User ID: 17897516 United States 02/25/2013 01:31 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Poor Martians. And this was just discovered last month and it might hit next year? Only 1 year warning. Just think if it was heading our way, there is nothing we could do about it. That's big enough to wipe out all life on Earth huh? I wonder if we have anything actually finished yet, i mean they have been working on ideas for moving asteroids and such, i wonder if they have one actually done and ready to test? Would be a perfect opportunity to get it up there and see if it helped move it enough to stop a collision. Or maybe its already too late to implement ...could take awhile to nudge it off course, don't know how long but i don't know if we would have time to get one up and working to the comet to try it out. Right now, our best hypothetical deflection techniques are intended for small asteroids that are years out from impact. This is a totally different level of trouble, and unlike the hollywood movies, could not be solved by stuffing a shuttle with Bruce Willis and a nuke. What if we turned out ALL the lights and pretended we weren't at home? |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 30665644 United States 02/25/2013 01:32 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Poor Martians. And this was just discovered last month and it might hit next year? Only 1 year warning. Just think if it was heading our way, there is nothing we could do about it. That's big enough to wipe out all life on Earth huh? I wonder if we have anything actually finished yet, i mean they have been working on ideas for moving asteroids and such, i wonder if they have one actually done and ready to test? Would be a perfect opportunity to get it up there and see if it helped move it enough to stop a collision. Or maybe its already too late to implement ...could take awhile to nudge it off course, don't know how long but i don't know if we would have time to get one up and working to the comet to try it out. Right now, our best hypothetical deflection techniques are intended for small asteroids that are years out from impact. This is a totally different level of trouble, and unlike the hollywood movies, could not be solved by stuffing a shuttle with Bruce Willis and a nuke. Yeah i hear ya, unfortunately, incoming too fast, not enough time and too large of a target. Sucks. |
\\'hyte \\'olf User ID: 14202392 United States 02/25/2013 01:32 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | I'm working on my own analysis of the comet's orbit and the potential risk right now, but in the meantime since word is starting to get around about this I wanted to go ahead and make the thread to put this out there. Hat tip to Dr. Ian Musgrave: Quoting: Dr. Astro [link to astroblogger.blogspot.com] Now, it's important to point out that we don't know the orbit well enough yet to know if it will hit or not. It could make a very close pass to Mars, or it could collide. We just don't know yet. I'm currently running my own analysis to try to determine the level of risk. If it hits though (which would be on October 19th, 2014), the impact will be tremendous. This comet is on a retrograde orbit, traveling the opposite direction of the planets, so a head-on collision would be in excess of 50 km/sec. That's very, very high. Minimum distance of the approach is currently sitting at 0 on JPL's site, maximum distance is at 0.00794 AU. [link to ssd.jpl.nasa.gov] It would be a very, very bad day to be a martian if this thing hits. If it turns out to be a head on impact, how would that influence Mars current orbit? "I Will Limit Your Access To My Reality..." :WhyteWolf: |
Dr. Astro (OP) Senior Forum Moderator User ID: 4211721 United States 02/25/2013 01:36 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | I'm working on my own analysis of the comet's orbit and the potential risk right now, but in the meantime since word is starting to get around about this I wanted to go ahead and make the thread to put this out there. Hat tip to Dr. Ian Musgrave: Quoting: Dr. Astro [link to astroblogger.blogspot.com] Now, it's important to point out that we don't know the orbit well enough yet to know if it will hit or not. It could make a very close pass to Mars, or it could collide. We just don't know yet. I'm currently running my own analysis to try to determine the level of risk. If it hits though (which would be on October 19th, 2014), the impact will be tremendous. This comet is on a retrograde orbit, traveling the opposite direction of the planets, so a head-on collision would be in excess of 50 km/sec. That's very, very high. Minimum distance of the approach is currently sitting at 0 on JPL's site, maximum distance is at 0.00794 AU. [link to ssd.jpl.nasa.gov] It would be a very, very bad day to be a martian if this thing hits. If it turns out to be a head on impact, how would that influence Mars current orbit? No discernible impact. The effects on the martian environment would be extreme though. |
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Anonymous Coward User ID: 30665644 United States 02/25/2013 01:41 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | It's this notion of cracking rock that gave me the idea of a huge impact crater splintering the surface strata all the way down to the mantle. That comet could leave one hell of a calling card on Mars, maybe even partially split the surface of the planet, permanently. |
Dr. Astro (OP) Senior Forum Moderator User ID: 4211721 United States 02/25/2013 01:47 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
a passing cloud User ID: 17437865 United States 02/25/2013 01:48 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | as mars craters go, this is the one to beat: [link to en.wikipedia.org] here's hoping we don't have hoardes of martian refugees coming here later this year... this really is an incredible solar system event, and MY two cents say it's anything but coincidence. why did i send myself to this world?? there must have been a reason. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 35091514 Australia 02/25/2013 01:49 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Very interesting news that's for sure. Will be interesting to see if we can get a front row seat of potential collision when the time comes. Quoting: The Dudester At the same time, it should serve as a wake up call to all governments on earth that one day in the not so distant future be on the recieving end of such a collision. Something needs to be done NOW !!!!! Agreed. If this doesn't wake people up, nothing will. Nothing will. They will talk about it on TV for a couple of days and then it will be right back to celebrity gossip. We need to be building and testing out solutions NOW. We can't wait until one is heading our way. It will be too late by then. The shit has to be built, tested, and ready to go. *sigh* we're screwed. Sad but true. From now on, whenever someone whines to me about spending money on space exploration, I will simply cite this comet and tell them to go look up what it would do. Start pushing Project Wormwood |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 30665644 United States 02/25/2013 01:50 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Hmmm..another idea ...you know that scientists have theorized for decades that asteroids and comets may have kick started life on our planet. We may have gotten most of our water from icy asteroids or large comets..they have said. Maybe this in the long run, if it hits, might turn out to be a good thing for Mars..bring more water to the planet ... all that moisture gathering in Mars's very thin atmosphere..creating clouds and maybe rain...maybe the comet is carrying some kind of microbial life just ready to kick start Mars back into the life cycle again..if it happened to Earth seems to me it could happen to Mars..again. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 15581643 South Africa 02/25/2013 01:50 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Very cool! This may be a stupid question, but is there any way we would be able to witness this from Earth? Through a telescope perhaps? Quoting: Petyermouse Thanks for all of your threads on here, I always enjoy reading them and appreciate your cosmic insight. 5 stars and karma. Yes, according to Ian's post it should be visible from earth (at least Mars will be, again, no idea where on mars it will hit yet but I will work on that), but I haven't yet determined where exactly you'll have to be to see it. After that collision, Mars will have an improved atmosphere, it will slowly incrase in density. And you all my see some water. ^This^ Almost as if it's according to plan.. |
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Dr. Astro (OP) Senior Forum Moderator User ID: 4211721 United States 02/25/2013 01:51 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | as mars craters go, this is the one to beat: Quoting: a passing cloud [link to en.wikipedia.org] here's hoping we don't have hoardes of martian refugees coming here later this year... this really is an incredible solar system event, and MY two cents say it's anything but coincidence. Yeah, I don't think it's going to be able to beat that lol. Still huge IF it hits. Still a very big "if." |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 20566260 United States 02/25/2013 01:57 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | what will the impact of this mean for the planned colonization of mars? will it impact progress? [link to www.fastcompany.com] [link to www.dailymail.co.uk] [link to www.forbes.com] |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 30665644 United States 02/25/2013 01:59 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | what will the impact of this mean for the planned colonization of mars? will it impact progress? Quoting: J&V [link to www.fastcompany.com] [link to www.dailymail.co.uk] [link to www.forbes.com] I think if their were colonists on Mars they would be having a very very bad day. |
Anonymous Coward User ID: 15581643 South Africa 02/25/2013 02:01 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Obvious question... Comet hit Jupiter. Comet could hit Mars. In a 10 year period? That seems statistically improbable. That just an anomaly? I'm generally a skeptic to the doomsayers. But the fact that thi even could be news that Earth could be getting is pretty chilling! Quoting: Anonymous Coward 17897516 Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter in 1994, so it's a difference of 20 years. |
hatch battener User ID: 35110678 United States 02/25/2013 02:02 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | It should be noted, that as it is, Mars is the 4th brightest object in the night sky. After the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter. For avid skywatchers, Mars is an obviously recognized, just by looking up. Not starlike. Reddish, but bigger than Saturn in appearance. That's Mars. It will be interesting to see the consequences of this potential impact. Already the 4th brightest object in the night sky, what would happen afterwards. Could Mars develop a tail of debris? A red comet in appearance? Also. as a meteor collector and researcher, it might be of supreme importance to note that Mars has an eccentric oval type orbit which brings it closer to Earth than any other planet. An 'epic' type impact on Mars very well will be bringing meteorite debris towards Earth. Already, Martian meteorites are among the most sought after rocks that can be found on Earth. There was a big one discovered last fall. If you're a betting man, the value of Martian meteorites might be going down... And the number of incoming objects may be increasing at a dramatic extent. |
BoxerLvr User ID: 906655 Puerto Rico 02/25/2013 02:03 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | as mars craters go, this is the one to beat: Quoting: a passing cloud [link to en.wikipedia.org] here's hoping we don't have hoardes of martian refugees coming here later this year... this really is an incredible solar system event, and MY two cents say it's anything but coincidence. Yeah, I don't think it's going to be able to beat that lol. Still huge IF it hits. Still a very big "if." They should try to nudge it into a collision course with Mars. That would be a good test to see if we can actually move one and provide a good show for astronomers. What do you say? It is precisely because it is fashionable for Americans to know no science, even though they may be well educated otherwise, that they so easily fall prey to nonsense. They thus become part of the armies of the night, the purveyors of nitwittery, the retailers of intellectual junk food, the feeders on mental cardboard, for their ignorance keeps them from distinguishing nectar from sewage. — Isaac Asimov |
Dr. Astro (OP) Senior Forum Moderator User ID: 4211721 United States 02/25/2013 02:03 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Dr. Astro (OP) Senior Forum Moderator User ID: 4211721 United States 02/25/2013 02:04 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | as mars craters go, this is the one to beat: Quoting: a passing cloud [link to en.wikipedia.org] here's hoping we don't have hoardes of martian refugees coming here later this year... this really is an incredible solar system event, and MY two cents say it's anything but coincidence. Yeah, I don't think it's going to be able to beat that lol. Still huge IF it hits. Still a very big "if." They should try to nudge it into a collision course with Mars. That would be a good test to see if we can actually move one and provide a good show for astronomers. What do you say? Now THAT is going full CometTard! LOL! Last Edited by Astromut on 02/25/2013 02:05 AM |