On 4/3/2025 10:56 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:

"Rising Odds Asteroid That Briefly Threatened Earth Will Hit Moon"

https://www.barrons.com/news/rising-odds-asteroid-that-briefly- threatened-earth-will-hit-moon-2c0fc2d5

"An huge asteroid that was briefly feared to strike Earth now has a
nearly four percent chance of smashing into the Moon, according to new
data from the James Webb Space Telescope."

"The asteroid, thought to be capable of levelling a city, set a new
record in February for having the highest chance -- 3.1 percent -- of
hitting our home planet than scientists have ever measured."

"Earth's planetary defence community leapt into action and further observations quickly ruled out that the asteroid -- called 2024 YR4 --
will strike Earth on December 22, 2032."

"But the odds that it will instead crash into Earth's satellite have
been steadily rising."

"After the Webb telescope turned its powerful gaze towards the asteroid
last month, the chance of a Moon shot is now at 3.8 percent, NASA said."

We are all going to die.

Eventually, yes, but not because of the creation of a new crater on the
moon.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Fri, 4 Apr 2025 07:56:54 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

On 4/3/2025 10:56 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:

<snippo Giant Space Rock might hit Moon>

"After the Webb telescope turned its powerful gaze towards the asteroid
last month, the chance of a Moon shot is now at 3.8 percent, NASA said."

We are all going to die.

Eventually, yes, but not because of the creation of a new crater on the >moon.

This article <https://www.sciencenews.org/article/moon-grand-canyons-lunar-rocks>
might be relevant, if the impact of the asteroid in question would
produce enegergies less than or greater than "130 times that of the
global inventory of nuclear weapons". Just as providing a sense of
scale to the possible results.

But it still only a 4% chance of a hit. That's a 96% chance of a miss,
after all.

Note: I signed out while finding this, but it should be generally
available. If not, the point of the article is that it took only 10
minutes to create two canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon by tossing
rocks around.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Fri, 4 Apr 2025 17:23:21 -0400, Cryptoengineer
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

Note: I signed out while finding this, but it should be generally
available. If not, the point of the article is that it took only 10
minutes to create two canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon by tossing
rocks around.

Just to clarify. The Schrodinger Impact Basin, which the article
refers to, is 312 km across. This is 50% larger than the Cicxulub
Crater the ended the dinosaurs, which was crated by an impactor
10 km across.

The current asteroid, 2024 YR4, is about 60m across, and about
one five millionth the mass of the Chicxulub impactor. Its a city
killer, not something that would cause a mass extinction.

pt

Silly question perhaps, but could a standard ICBM be fired into space
and have a hope in hell to (when detonated) turn a collision into a
near miss?

(Am pretty sure I read an SF story where this was a theme)

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On 4/18/2025 5:14 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Fri, 4 Apr 2025 17:23:21 -0400, Cryptoengineer
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

Note: I signed out while finding this, but it should be generally
available. If not, the point of the article is that it took only 10
minutes to create two canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon by tossing
rocks around.

Just to clarify. The Schrodinger Impact Basin, which the article
refers to, is 312 km across. This is 50% larger than the Cicxulub
Crater the ended the dinosaurs, which was crated by an impactor
10 km across.

The current asteroid, 2024 YR4, is about 60m across, and about
one five millionth the mass of the Chicxulub impactor. Its a city
killer, not something that would cause a mass extinction.

pt

Silly question perhaps, but could a standard ICBM be fired into space
and have a hope in hell to (when detonated) turn a collision into a
near miss?

(Am pretty sure I read an SF story where this was a theme)

No, not really. ICBMs are not made to reach escape velocity to start.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Apr 18, 2025, The Horny Goat wrote
(in article<3kq50kti5kl74jv2mq0pjsv657co1t72cm@4ax.com>):

On Fri, 4 Apr 2025 17:23:21 -0400, Cryptoengineer
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

Note: I signed out while finding this, but it should be generally available. If not, the point of the article is that it took only 10 minutes to create two canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon by tossing rocks around.

Just to clarify. The Schrodinger Impact Basin, which the article
refers to, is 312 km across. This is 50% larger than the Cicxulub
Crater the ended the dinosaurs, which was crated by an impactor
10 km across.

The current asteroid, 2024 YR4, is about 60m across, and about
one five millionth the mass of the Chicxulub impactor. Its a city
killer, not something that would cause a mass extinction.

pt

Silly question perhaps, but could a standard ICBM be fired into space
and have a hope in hell to (when detonated) turn a collision into a
near miss?

(Am pretty sure I read an SF story where this was a theme)

A standard ICBM wouldn’t do; insufficient delta-vee to make it to the
target. Just one nuke wouldn’t be enough; multiple nukes, detonated at the correct range and angle, could pull an Orion nuke-pulse-motor thing on the inbound rock and change the trajectory. There would have to be special
rockets, several special rockets, with multiple warheads each. Big warheads, multi-megaton range, if the intent is to shift a big rock moving at a high velocity. And the timing would be critical; too far away, no effect or not enough effect; too close, and the target breaks up into smaller but still massive and dangerous chunks, some of which are gonna hit. Trivial it
ain’t.

There was a 1970s or 80s Analog story, ‘Industrial Accident’, involving a slight problem with an inbound asteroid, redirected to be mined in Earth
orbit, except Something Goes Wrong and it ain’t headed for orbit no more. IIRC the (Japanese) space mining company gets a few volunteers to hand-guide nukes to divert it. The voluteers ride the nukes all the way in. Banzai!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Fri, 18 Apr 2025 17:14:30 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca>
wrote:

On Fri, 4 Apr 2025 17:23:21 -0400, Cryptoengineer
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

Note: I signed out while finding this, but it should be generally
available. If not, the point of the article is that it took only 10
minutes to create two canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon by tossing
rocks around.

Just to clarify. The Schrodinger Impact Basin, which the article
refers to, is 312 km across. This is 50% larger than the Cicxulub
Crater the ended the dinosaurs, which was crated by an impactor
10 km across.

The current asteroid, 2024 YR4, is about 60m across, and about
one five millionth the mass of the Chicxulub impactor. Its a city
killer, not something that would cause a mass extinction.

pt

Silly question perhaps, but could a standard ICBM be fired into space
and have a hope in hell to (when detonated) turn a collision into a
near miss?

Didn't NASA do a test a while back showing that that was possible?
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 4/19/2025 8:56 AM, Paul S Person wrote:

On Fri, 18 Apr 2025 17:14:30 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca>
wrote:

On Fri, 4 Apr 2025 17:23:21 -0400, Cryptoengineer
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

Note: I signed out while finding this, but it should be generally
available. If not, the point of the article is that it took only 10
minutes to create two canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon by tossing
rocks around.

Just to clarify. The Schrodinger Impact Basin, which the article
refers to, is 312 km across. This is 50% larger than the Cicxulub
Crater the ended the dinosaurs, which was crated by an impactor
10 km across.

The current asteroid, 2024 YR4, is about 60m across, and about
one five millionth the mass of the Chicxulub impactor. Its a city
killer, not something that would cause a mass extinction.

pt

Silly question perhaps, but could a standard ICBM be fired into space
and have a hope in hell to (when detonated) turn a collision into a
near miss?

Didn't NASA do a test a while back showing that that was possible?

The NASA test (DART I believe was the name) used an interplanetary
launch vehicle. ICBMs are not interplanetary.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

On 4/18/2025 5:14 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:

Silly question perhaps, but could a standard ICBM be fired into space
and have a hope in hell to (when detonated) turn a collision into a
near miss?

(Am pretty sure I read an SF story where this was a theme)

No, not really. ICBMs are not made to reach escape velocity to start.

You don't need to reach escape velocity, you just need to keep plugging
along. You can certainly make it into orbit with an Atlas or a Titan
as many satellites have done in the past, but of course the payload to
orbit is much smaller than if you just needed to get as far as Moscow.

So the question then becomes "can you get a big enough bomb out far
enough?"

I think the only ICBMs we have left today in the US are Minuteman IIIs.
These are solids, and I think the reason why they got kept when the
others didn't was that the time to launch for solids is very short and
the whole point of the ICBM is to bomb the other guy first. The solids
used on the Minuteman were adapted for use on the Conestoga rockets which
were capable of getting up to geosynchronous orbit. So could you do
that with an unmodified Minuteman? I don't know but it would be an
interesting premise to build a novel around.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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