The conclusion was clear: Humans can indeed move an asteroid. If we detect a dangerous space rock headed toward Earth, knocking it off course with a spacecraft is a potential option.

This gives me a nice piece of mind. I know that an asteroid impact apocalypse is exceedingly rare, but it's one fewer threat we have to fear now.

[–] spittingimage 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

200 tons of space rocks rain down on the Earth every day. It's the ones the size of Mt Fuji you need to worry about.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

How about something the size of the moon?

I read that if we took every nuclear weapons we have and detonate it on the moon, it wouldn't do jack shit and the moon will just shrug it off.

[–] spittingimage 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If we spot a moon-sized object heading for us, I wouldn't start any long books.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Wouldn't me be able to predict that sort of collision decades or centuries in advance? I feel like we know the trajectories of all the moon-sized objects in the solar system pretty accurately by this point.

[–] spittingimage 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If it's that big I think we've got a pretty good chance of seeing it coming. But at any given time we're only looking at a fraction of the sky.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

But at any given time we're only looking at a fraction of the sky.

True, but aren't there telescopes like WISE (and the upcoming NEO Surveyor) whose whole purpose is to continually and repeatedly scan the sky for objects? It seems rather unlikely that we would have repeatedly missed a moon-sized object.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

True, but SevenEves notwithstanding, the moon is not likely to hit the earth any time soon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The one that's a hundred meters across, sure.

The one that's the size of Texas, not so much.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

We can easily track the big ones though, and none of them are on a collision course with Earth in the near future.