Can an Air Defense system be designed to destroy incoming meteorites?

flamming_python wrote:I'd imagine this discussion to roar up again in Russia in the coming weeks. We. Must. Close. The Meteorite gap!

Sujoy wrote:A good question to ask is how did scientists , astronomers the world over fail so miserably to calculate the trajectory and therefore point of impact of the meteorites ?

ricky123 wrote:
i want to know why did russia send 20000 troops to the impact area ???? were they expecting clarkkent ???

TR1 wrote:20,000 Emercom personell, not troops.

ricky123 wrote: whats that

GarryB wrote:The main problem of interception is that the target is likely a solid lump of something. If the target is the size of a mountain imagine dropping bombs on that mountain... the whole mountain isn't destroyed... you just make small craters. In fact if, by some miracle you manage to split the incoming rock then you might find the new trajectories result in two targets on the ground being hit instead of one. Breaking up an incoming threat can just spread the damage rather than actually protect someone.

The meteor that streaked across the skies over Russia in a blinding fireball on Friday exploded with a force about 30 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb

Nasa estimated that the energy released by the meteor's impact with the atmosphere was 500 kilotonnes, around 30 times the force of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. It entered the atmosphere and broke up at an altitude of around 32 miles, causing a shockwave that blew out windows and set of car alarms in Chelyabinsk two and a half minutes later.

Sujoy wrote:NASA scientists :

The meteor that streaked across the skies over Russia in a blinding fireball on Friday exploded with a force about 30 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb

Nasa estimated that the energy released by the meteor's impact with the atmosphere was 500 kilotonnes, around 30 times the force of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. It entered the atmosphere and broke up at an altitude of around 32 miles, causing a shockwave that blew out windows and set of car alarms in Chelyabinsk two and a half minutes later.

GarryB wrote:Early detection is 1000 times more valuable than developing missiles to hit incoming threats.

GarryB wrote:Early detection is 1000 times more valuable than developing missiles to hit incoming threats.

The Russian Planetary Defence Centre will need a maximum of 7 years to create a system that would protect the Earth against meteors and other space debris. At present, scientists have 24 scenarios to save the planet from Near-Earth Objects. In addition to technology, people should be prepared for meteor disasters as well.

A global set of meteor defence measures includes more than 20 variants of dealing with meteoroids, comets and other space objects that pose a potential threat to the Earth. Russia’s space expertsand emergency workers believe that a system that guarantees people protection against meteor impacts should be dealt with first, particularly following the meteor strike of several days ago when radars were powerless to help. A whole network of shelters and bunkers should be built to secure protection against meteorites. In addition, a number of satellites will be sent to orbit in the next few years to track dangerous objects flying by.

A Voice of Russia correspondent met Anatoly Zaitsev, director of the Planetary Defence Centre, who expressed the following views: “The satellites should be provided with telescopes. Flying debris cannot always be detected from the Earth because astronomers can observe only the dark sideof the sky from the Earth. Reconnaissance satellites are also needed to explore the nature of the debris. These ‘scout rockets’, which will follow the shortest trajectories, will provide data needed to organize the launch of interceptor rockets. The objects that pose a danger to the Earth should be pushed off their trajectories or destroyed.”

The Russian-proposed meteor defence system makes it possible to protect the Earth against meteors with a radius of 10 metres, like the one that hit Chelyabinsk, to 100 metres. 100-metre asteroids make up the lion’s share of asteroids orbiting the Earth.

A Chelyabinsk school teacher saved her class from the meteor impact by ordering them to take coverunder their desks. The shockwave from the meteor strike smashed all windows in the classroom. The teacher, Yulia Karbysheva, sustained numerous cuts but her children escaped unharmed. Eventhough she had no idea that the fireball they suddenly saw outside was a meteor, Karbysheva knew how to act in case of an explosion. All teachers are trained to act in this way, the school’s deputy director Oksana Cheryomina says. “The teacher must have remembered what she was supposed to do in case of emergency and did it. She must have attended all relevant trainings. On top of that, she demonstrated personal courage.”

Experts who examined the debris left by the Chelyabinsk meteorite have come to the conclusion that it won’t affect the environment or people’s health, Dmitry Penemanskiy of the Ural FederalUniversity, says. “A chemical test of the recovered debris revealed the presence of meteoritic matter. A search group consisting of university staff has left for Chebarkul again in the hope offinding more fragments. Judging by the fragments recovered so far, the meteorite that crashed in a lake near Chelyabinsk was a chondrite. It poses no threat to the environment or human life but is of great scientific interest.”

While scientists are busy studying the meteor debris, locals are after fragments of extraterrestrial stones as well. Pieces of the meteorite have been offered for sale on the Internet. Some cost as much as $15,000.

Sujoy wrote:Russia to create meteor defence shield - Anatoly Zaitsev, director - Planetary Defence Centre

The Russian Planetary Defence Centre will need a maximum of 7 years to create a system that would protect the Earth against meteors and other space debris. At present, scientists have 24 scenarios to save the planet from Near-Earth Objects. In addition to technology, people should be prepared for meteor disasters as well.

A global set of meteor defence measures includes more than 20 variants of dealing with meteoroids, comets and other space objects that pose a potential threat to the Earth. Russia’s space expertsand emergency workers believe that a system that guarantees people protection against meteor impacts should be dealt with first, particularly following the meteor strike of several days ago when radars were powerless to help. A whole network of shelters and bunkers should be built to secure protection against meteorites. In addition, a number of satellites will be sent to orbit in the next few years to track dangerous objects flying by.

A Voice of Russia correspondent met Anatoly Zaitsev, director of the Planetary Defence Centre, who expressed the following views: “The satellites should be provided with telescopes. Flying debris cannot always be detected from the Earth because astronomers can observe only the dark sideof the sky from the Earth. Reconnaissance satellites are also needed to explore the nature of the debris. These ‘scout rockets’, which will follow the shortest trajectories, will provide data needed to organize the launch of interceptor rockets. The objects that pose a danger to the Earth should be pushed off their trajectories or destroyed.”

The Russian-proposed meteor defence system makes it possible to protect the Earth against meteors with a radius of 10 metres, like the one that hit Chelyabinsk, to 100 metres. 100-metre asteroids make up the lion’s share of asteroids orbiting the Earth.

A Chelyabinsk school teacher saved her class from the meteor impact by ordering them to take coverunder their desks. The shockwave from the meteor strike smashed all windows in the classroom. The teacher, Yulia Karbysheva, sustained numerous cuts but her children escaped unharmed. Eventhough she had no idea that the fireball they suddenly saw outside was a meteor, Karbysheva knew how to act in case of an explosion. All teachers are trained to act in this way, the school’s deputy director Oksana Cheryomina says. “The teacher must have remembered what she was supposed to do in case of emergency and did it. She must have attended all relevant trainings. On top of that, she demonstrated personal courage.”

Experts who examined the debris left by the Chelyabinsk meteorite have come to the conclusion that it won’t affect the environment or people’s health, Dmitry Penemanskiy of the Ural FederalUniversity, says. “A chemical test of the recovered debris revealed the presence of meteoritic matter. A search group consisting of university staff has left for Chebarkul again in the hope offinding more fragments. Judging by the fragments recovered so far, the meteorite that crashed in a lake near Chelyabinsk was a chondrite. It poses no threat to the environment or human life but is of great scientific interest.”

While scientists are busy studying the meteor debris, locals are after fragments of extraterrestrial stones as well. Pieces of the meteorite have been offered for sale on the Internet. Some cost as much as $15,000.

Source : Voice Of Russia

GarryB wrote:

But if its coming to Earth; breaking up a meteorite into multiple pieces would give the atmosphere a lot more surface area to react with, and individual smaller volumes that can be completely burnt up before they hit Earth

The danger is not a warhead, the danger is mass, so by definition a target worth engaging is too heavy to have much effect upon.

Travelling at 20km per second or more the material is in the earths atmosphere for less than 3 seconds, which is not very long to heat it.

Nuclear weapons would not be very effective hitting the surface of a large rock and likely could not be made hard enough to penetrate any depth because the closing speed would obliterate the missile warhead.

The heat generated by the nuclear warhead would be the main effect and as such would be fairly useless. Inside the atmosphere a nuclear warhead is very powerful because it has an atmosphere to push around to create a blast wave and air to superheat etc etc, but in space it would just heat up things to very high temperatures but there is no blast wave.

The result of a nuclear strike on an asteroid would be a slightly heated radioactive rock that will hit the earth anyway.