Asteroid 2024 YR4 reaches level 3 on the Torino Scale

[Assimilator]

Not really no. Besides, the railgun (if you could even get the power level required) would push the station as much as it pushed the asteroid. Kind of an issue outside of scifi...

Way too many people assume a railgun would have no recoil because it doesn't use gunpowder. But conservation of momentum still applies so you'd still have recoil - although constant over the length of the rails, versus instantaneous with gunpowder.

 

[lexluthermiester]

So we only need to deflect it enough to alter its vector by a tiny tiny millionth or billionth of a degree

Yes and no. More no than yes.

Where we hit the object will determine to what degree we will need to alter it's course. The mass of the object will determine how much force we need to alter it's orbital trajectory.

If we wait until it's on approach, we would need at least 2.1 or 2.2 degree deflection to prevent an impact event. If we hit it further out, less force is needed, but the course deviation would still need to be at least 1 degree aprox, otherwise we risk a glancing off the atmosphere and a return orbit with future impact potential.

Would it be possible to mount a railgun on a space station, and would that be effective?

Only if we hit the object several times in succession. And we'd have to build a space station first. The ISS is ramping down it's time and will be decommissioned in 2030, 2 years before the event in question. Of course, the physics would be a problem...

Not really no. Besides, the railgun (if you could even get the power level required) would push the station as much as it pushed the asteroid. Kind of an issue outside of scifi...

...thus. And we'd have to get one up there.

Way too many people assume a railgun would have no recoil because it doesn't use gunpowder. But conservation of momentum still applies so you'd still have recoil - although constant over the length of the rails, versus instantaneous with gunpowder.

Exactly! The recoil would still be equal to the mass of the projectile(s) being accelerated. Thus any station that serves as a launch platform would need a thruster system that could react swiftly to maintain the stations position.

An interception missile solution makes greatly more sense.

Because even that is overkill. Per the video that Divide Overflow linked above, if we intercept it in 2028, we only have to slow down 0.02 m/s.

That depends greatly on the mass of the object. The greater the mass, the less chance we have of deflection at such an early stage of the orbital intersection. Such an effort would be a "hope-and-pray" approach, not at all appropriate for taking actions that have far reaching global consequences.

 

[AusWolf]

Cancer's still poorly understood but the cancers that account for a majority of deaths are attributable to known carcinogens or behaviours. ie sunburn/smoking/red meat/food additives etc. Atmospheric radiation probably accounts for some, but it's hard to prove either way and statistically insignificant.

My mom never smoked, didn't like red meat too much, was very sensitive to sun so she minimised her exposure, but died of cancer at 58. Sure, isolated example, but only non-smokers blame everything on smoking. Kind of shitty way to hide from reality in my opinion. No offense.

 

[lexluthermiester]

How do you know that nuke will not interfere with Earth magnetic field with EMP?

Knowledge based on past experiments. You might not understand just how resilient and strong Earth's magnetic field is. No nuke, or series of nukes, set off in proximity of Earth's magnetic field will have any effect that even comes close to what the Sun throws at us on a regular basis. We could throw every nuke we have at Earth's magnetic field, it would just smile and keep right on going. Chances are we'd make it stronger depending on were the nukes would detonate.

Damage to Earth's magnetic field is a non-issue.

 

[Assimilator]

but only non-smokers blame everything on smoking

The evidence shows that the majority of diagnosed cancers are indeed correlated with certain lifestyle choices, but ultimately cancer is a malfunction at the cellular level that can arise for a multitude of reasons that we still don't fully, and probably never will, understand. Pointing out those lifestyle choices as being generally more significant than background radiation exposure, is not blaming anything on anyone.

 

[AusWolf]

The evidence shows that the majority of diagnosed cancers are indeed correlated with certain lifestyle choices, but ultimately cancer is a malfunction at the cellular level that can arise for a multitude of reasons that we still don't fully, and probably never will, understand. Pointing out those lifestyle choices as being generally more significant than background radiation exposure, is not blaming anything on anyone.

I don't disagree. I just don't like brushing off cancer as "muh, lifestyle choice" which it is not. I also know / have known many hard smokers who are still rocking hard in the latter stages of their lives.

 

[R-T-B]

Knowledge based on past experiments. You might not understand just how resilient and strong Earth's magnetic field is. No nuke, or series of nukes, set off in proximity of Earth's magnetic field will have any effect that even comes close to what the Sun throws at us on a regular basis. We could throw every nuke we have at Earth's magnetic field, it would just smile and keep right on going. Chances are we'd make it stronger depending on were the nukes would detonate.

Damage to Earth's magnetic field is a non-issue.

I'd worry more about damage to electronics on the ground but really, this is far far away if we want it to be effective. A nonissue besides radioactive particulate if done badly.

 

[Chrispy_]

I don't disagree. I just don't like brushing off cancer as "muh, lifestyle choice" which it is not. I also know / have known many hard smokers who are still rocking hard in the latter stages of their lives.

I'm not brushing it off as a lifestyle choice. We know, provably, that certain lifestyle choices are heavily correlated with cancers, but that's a small part of the cancer venn diagram. I'd wager that in 100 years from now, or whenever humanity finally understands cancer, it'll be because of the processed garbage we eat, and that is very difficult and expensive to fully avoid. We simply don't know what the all factors are right now, and whilst lifestyle choices eliminate the known causes, there are plenty of unknown causes. Maybe it's fluorinated tap water, Maybe it's a pesticide, maybe it's a pollutant from internal combustion. Neither science nor medicine can tell us how to live, or whether it's even possible to live in a way that guarantees zero risk of cancer.

But we're getting off topic again! Atmospheric contamination from a nuked 2024-YR4 may or may not be harmful, but it'll certainly be an insignificant, negligible consideration given the existing state of our already-irradiated atmosphere. Until we have an ironclad, actually-adhered to international ban nuclear testing it's a moot point.

Anyways, the EKV would need to go a lot slower than usual regardless, as the object being intercepted is much faster than a typical ICBM (13 km/s vs 6.5 km/s).

Ah okay, I think I get it. If we calculate relative to earth, The EKV could effectively be stationary because the asteroid is going to hit it at tens of km/s.

I need to watch the Scott Manley video. Given the massive disparity in values, and vague accuracy of size and mass for 2024-YR4, I'm curious where 37.7m/s came from. Whether the EKV is going at 40m/s, 0m/s, or even -40m/s is irrelevant when the asteroid is approching at 18,000m/s. It's a rounding error to multiple decimal places!

 

[Steevo]

How do you know that nuke will not interfere with Earth magnetic field with EMP?

Cause we have detonated nukes in space before woth no cataclysm.

 

[Chrispy_]

Cause we have detonated nukes in space before woth no cataclysm.

Also, the sun is a never-ending nuke 'detonation' that has been bombarding the earth with far more particle and electromagnetic radiation than any man-made detonation for, oh, the last 4.5 billion years already

 

[Assimilator]

Cause we have detonated nukes in space before woth no cataclysm.

Starfish Prime killed satellites though, and there are a lot more satellites now.

 

[Nathaaab]

Oh my God! Are you really quoting a blog here, which talks about fantasy book / movie?

Just popping in to point out that it's by the CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research .

Aside than that, interesting thread to read.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Starfish Prime killed satellites though, and there are a lot more satellites now.

Yes, but that was a sub-orbital detonation. The application we're discussion would take place a few million miles out, beyond the orbit of the moon. It's just not going to be of any consequence.

 

[Chrispy_]

Yes, but that was a sub-orbital detonation. The application we're discussion would take place a few million miles out, beyond the orbit of the moon. It's just not going to be of any consequence.

As I understand it we lost a dozen or so early, unshielded satellites from that nuke test, and we've lost several more early satellites to solar flares for the same reason.

Newer satellites are hardened against EMP to survive solar flares (mostly) but also nuke tests, WW3, and possibly a bunch of irradiated asteroid fragments coming in hot.