OF THE
TIMES
Can Bruce Willis save us from asteroid 'Armageddon'? No, and neither can your government8 billion miles from Earth? Even with today's technology they can only spot extinction level event-sized asteroids the day before they whizz by...
Could it actually happen? Definitely not, say physics graduate students at the University of Leicester in England. [...]
Ben Hall, Gregory Brown, Ashley Back and Stuart Turner devised a formula to calculate how much energy would be needed to split an asteroid of the size depicted in the film. They reported in two related papers in the University of Leicester Journal of Special Physical Topics that it would require 800 trillion terajoules of energy to split the asteroid in two with both pieces clearing the planet. Unfortunately, the largest nuclear bomb known, a Russian monster known as Big Ivan, yields only 418,000 joules. Hence, they said, the project would require a bomb a billion times as powerful to save the Earth.
Moreover, the asteroid would have to be split at a distance of about 8 billion miles from Earth. That is, coincidentally, about the maximum distance at which such an asteroid could be detected, leaving no time for the group to assemble and travel to the body -- much less to have time for meaningful encounters with Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler along the way.
Beautiful and scary at the same time. Wonder when the big one will strike! โ๏ธ P.S This is probably what happened over Stockton, California.
Hi All, I just finished reading โGrand Deception,โ (I highly recommend it) and next wanted to find the documentary that was withheld from release....
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. It seems a bit late now to talk about an unnecessary NATO.
Is there some new sub-human species emerging on this planet? Perhaps the animals such 'human'-animals annihilate will be replaced by these same...
"prolong the agony" Yep.
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Big Ivan (or Tsar Bomba) was proof of the theory that there is no upper limit to the H-bomb yield, other than how much fuel can be supplied. They had a target of 100 megatons, but chose 50 instead because of load limits on the aircraft. Who's to say that an effort to deflect (rather than split) might be sucessful?
At least SOMEBODY on this planet has their brains engaged on the cosmic threat front.
Better to try than to watch helplessly as your civilization is barbecued and blasted to bits.
I say hats off to the Russians for the effort.
It certainly ain't going to be the WEST to the rescue.