One of the theories is that Mars atmosphere boiled off due to solar radiation during a pole reversal .Without the atmosphere to hold it the water could have evaporated. A pole reversal could happen on earth too.
Well actually Nasa is testing out a Rover that will be manned by 2 people! They tested it in Arizona! But my concern is if they find anything will Nasa cover it up? Well isn't the Earth Poles going to shift 2012? Oh boy that is not going to be good news : / Edit- http://jalopnik.com/5070412/nasa-reveals-new-rover-for-manned-extraterrestrial-missions
Well every 20,000 years the earth shifts on its axis(?) on 2012 it will complete a 20,000 shift thus causing global climate change I believe. And Des is right Climate change happens all the time we'll find out soon enough though.
When you look at all the different faces earth has had from the Snow Ball effect - when the earth was covered head to toe in ice and snow - to the time right after the dinosaurs were wiped off the planet by the Yucatán Peninsula asteroid and the planet was pretty much barren for a long period of time, longer than the time modern man has been on the planet, it shouldn't really surprise any of us what secrets Mars has hidden from us.
Putting the doom and gloom aside for a moment, opal beaches might be interesting. I can forsee an enclosed beach resort there with supplied air and water for the filthy rich.
Every 300,000 years approx there has been a pole reversal on earth some scientists have estimated .Its preceeded by a weakening of the earths magnetic field. I dont want to scare anyone but the earths magnetic field has been weakening
Yeah we know they've happened and we know there will be another in the future, we just don't know when exactly. Another way this could happen is if an asteroid hits us from a blind spot. NASA admits it only knows the location of roughly 40% asteroids and it's a shame more people aren't talking about it to get them more funding to get to as close to 100% as possible. The one that nearly passed us in 2002 would have flattened all of NYC and some kid sitting on his porch somewhere was the only one who noticed it. "Hey NASA, see that thing that just passed us?" "No uhh, woah wait, rewind that tape" In 1973 Jupiter bailed us out and took a hit from an asteroid that caused an explosion that was 4-5 the size of Earth. Ouch. Wouldn't be too worried about 2012 either, but I am worried about 2036 I'll be honest. NASA estimates a 1 in 45,000 chance of Apophis hitting us. Doesn't sound like much but that's a pretty damn big 1.
True, I mean we can get killed driving to work tomorrow but we can at least eliminate the ways that will cause global catastrophe or even extermination. The sad reality is that if one comes from our blind spot we don't even have a play. Not one. At the moment all we're doing is offering scholarships to high school kids to find a deflection strategy. Don't know about you but I want real science guys working on this not high schoolers. Apophis will pass us on April 13, 2029 and will come so close that it will get affected by earth's gravity. NASA currently believes that when it comes back on April 13, 2036 it will be a near miss. However, this is all taken into account that they're correct on how they believe it will act once it passes. But even they admit they're not exactly sure. So if on April 14 2029 we realize our calculations were wrong and Apophis really is going to hit us in 36 we are beyond screwed. We don't have the nukes to blow it up right now, and with all the regulations we will have even less then. Even if we did, are we really going to send gigatons of nukes up there and cross our fingers it works?
I'm not a science guy, but will nukes work in space, a vacum with no oxygen?? Splitting a particle causes great deals of energy, but won't it just dissipitate (sp?) in space?
Nukes won't work, even if the asteroid was a small one and if we were able to get a nuke in place, all it would do is create a bunch of smaller projectiles that would hit us. In order to move an asteroid, we would need to know about it well in advance (decades in advance) and gently move it off course.
I'm not so sure about your estimates on the nuke barrage. I think you may be underestimating the power of the most recent multiple warhead ICBMs.
Isn't it generally accepted that Earth's magnetic poles have reversed several times through its history? (No, really, honest question.) Edit: Should have read the thread. D'oh.
fission and fusion weapons are not O2 dependant, so would work in space. One of the ideas revolves around a "proximity" detonation. Not close enough to break it up, but close enough for the heat energy to vaporize a portion of the surface, with the resulting ejection of material, it would "nudge" the rock. I don't think there is a high probability of success, because many of these things are spinning, but it is one of many idea's.
A little confused here Mike. The smaller projectiles you speak of? You mean after the Asteroid is blown into smitherenes? The energy of an Atomic Fission Bomb would almost definately change the course of anything it reaches, especially with the lack of Gravity. A Nuclear warhead, with adequete sized charge would and could alter a very very large asteriod. One 4 times the size of the Earth would be a different matter all-together. As Marty says, Atomic Fission in the vacuum of outerspace would NOT be an issue as what is actually happening is splitting of atoms and the Nuclear chain reaction that takes place afterwards.
One of the craziest methods I have heard of was suggested by a former astronaut . He said a giant sail could be attached to the meteor and that the solar wind would deviate the celestial object from its trajectory
I think what he is referring too is that if you blow up a celestial body it will be reduced to several celestial objects which makes it more likely that at least one perhaps several will hit the earth.
From everything that I've seen/heard/read a nuke wouldn't vaporize an object that is 6 miles in diameter, that size is considered to be a "small" asteroid. What it might do is break it up into smaller projectiles that would hit the planet and cause just as much devastation. What the object is made of and it's density also has to be factored in, a bunch of loose rocks held together by gravity would be easier to break up than a solid mass of metals. I'm not exactly sure that the energy from a nuclear blast would do much to nudge an object out of the way unless you knew about it decades in advance. Because of the speeds that these asteroids are traveling (some travel 28,000 - 50,000 mph) you would need one heck of a blast to change it's path. Obviously the sooner you know about a potential ECA, the sooner you can plan for it and hopefully engage it before it came to close to Earth, but I think the Hollywood version of what would happen isn't very likely. Here's a video of a semi recent asteroid just to give a visual reference for how fast these things are going. This was taken from the Kitt Peak observatory back in 2002, the asteroid (.43 mile diameter, relatively tiny) was about 326,000 miles away from Earth, or roughly 1.3 times the distance between Earth and the moon. http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr02/images/asteroid_2002ny40.mov Put some extra mass behind that and I don't think that a nuke would do much damage. It would be like shooting spitballs at a big rig IMO.
We could always send a crew of Oil drillers send them up there to drill into the damn thing and then drop the nuke in the center while listening to Aerosmith.