en.m.wikipedia.org
Guarapari, a municipality of the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil, reported higher mortality rates for the most common cancers from 1996 to 2000. This municipality has beaches with high natural radioactivity. To verify whether this excessive cancer mortality rate still exist in Guarapari...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Cancer is NOT the mutation of our DNA specifically, if that were the case we are all always positive for cancer as some of the trillions of our cells have a generoc defect from one of a million reasons. It's only when the mutation results in abnormal cell growth and its inability to die that it becomes what we call cancer.
Also on a side note the other Chernobyl reactors continued to operate after the accident. Your comment about Fukushima, who exactly has died of radiation? (The answer is zero) And John Wayne?
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/06/downwinders-nuclear-fallout-hollywood-john-wayne You mean the nuclear fallout from hundreds if not thousands of nuclear tests in the 40s and 50s? People got sick from living downwind of something that wasn't understood at the time and.the government had its own motives to keep creating more and more deadly weapons "in the name of peace" and there is nothing we can do about it now.
All of this doesn't change the fact that if the option is a 100m asteroid hits earth and causes unknown damage to a large population (maybe it hits a nuclear power plant or causes the next Fukushima with a tsunami) and sending a nuclear warhead to space to break it up and its "fallout" causes a 1% increase in cancer in a particular area..... which would you rather?
Cas actually IS the mutation of DNA, which is handled by our own immune reaction of the body.
How about some proof:
No, Chernobil did not operate after the incident. But the reaction was still going on for quite some time, as it is not shut down like light OFF switch.
Again. there are some serous numbers behind the radiation death toll, here is an article about it about Chernobyl & Fukushima:
https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima
Also, you can check those against other radiation incidents:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll
So telling us that "increased radiation" had nothing to do with it...my response is
Thanks for at least admitting that John Wayne too early demise was also contributed by nuclear radiation exposure!
Again, I seriously doubt that path of the asteroid is in the way of any nuclear facility, given that it is mostly striking 3rd world countries!
2nd, after Fukushima happen, IAEA learned a lesion. So back-up generators should not be within the striking distance of the wave. But it is too early for any speculation, as we:
1. do not know the path, as the striking ratio is about ~1/50 -> trajectory needs to be defined!
2. if it impacts, we do not know the point of impact -> see step 1.
3. we do not even know the "keyhole trajectory", or the "keyhole" point after which it would strike Earth by 100% chance! -> see step 1.
4. we do not know its rotation speed, which would influence where & how to deflect it. -> see step 1.
4. we do not know the size of the asteroid, as it is 40~90m wide...that is not so accurate, so we can't know the exact Mt it would do to Earth (we know that 90m would make ~500x of Heroshima bomb).
5. we do not know the composition of asteroid, which would help us to move it...as ice on it can be melt & ejected into space, so giving "a rocket boost" on the surface of asteroid. That is something a metal based asteroids can't be deflected with, so DART impact or bomb deflection are option to those.
6. we do not know the color of the asteroid, so we do know if we can wrap it up in solar sail material or paint it so the Sun can make the change of trajectory.
etc.
So blowing thing up, is & always should be last resort! Not to mention that uncertainty of the nuclear deflection is possible in vacuum of space, at least in significant degree to make a change of trajectory.
Uh, you appear to not understand radioactivity either. That's okay, it's not a simple concept but there's loads of resources out there that are interesting reads. Wikipedia's not the worst place to start for high-level overviews.
The only radioactive elements that we're adding by nuking 2024 YR4 would be the fission metals in the warhead, uranium and plutonium. the deuterium and tritium would be fused so there's neutron radiation that's gone shortly after the fusion reaction ends.
"irradiated" is an umbrella term for land, food, water, whatever that has been either contaminated by radioactive particulates, or something that has been sterilised by ionising radiation. Uranium-235 and plutonium-239 are the ones we're concerned about if we nuke an asteroid, and one nuke's worth of material are going to be dispersed in the atmosphere if the nuke is unsuceessful in diverting 2024 YR4.
For the record, "the atmosphere" is ~500 million square kilometres of earth's surface to a height of ~100 km or so as defined by most scientists. That's a grand total of 50 billion cubic kilometers of air to disperse/dilute one nuke's worth of radioactive fallout. Whatever the outcome, it's far less concerning than the 500 far more localised, low-level atmospheric nuclear tests that have already happened, so can we please stop worrying about it?
Again, we do not know the size, shape, color or spin of the asteroid...not to mention its composition!
To assume that it will not get irradiated by an explosion, is a but assumption & not very scientific one!
& BTW, it is not U-235 or P-239 that is the problem after explosion...but isotopes of Sr, Te, Cs, Ba, Ce, etc.
