/sci/ - Science & Math

Holy shit. An actual chance that something on this scale can happen in our solar system and us getting to directly observe it happening. Scientists around the world are probably saying (on the inside) "Mars.. we really like you, but hey. It's nothing personal, but we really need this to happen. For science."

Am I wrong, that even if the comet is missing, I kinda wish we made a mission to aim it towards Mars?

You know. For science. Plus it's good practise.

>Mars' face when the impact is on the far side

>>5578728
your points are very valid, though moralfags would flip out and anything less than a crash effort would take too long

i, for one, vote for your plan

Considering that crashing comets into mars is one of the proposed methods of terraforming you might say that it could help.

What if it hits and it turns out Mars is actually filled with confetti?

>>5578807
Instead of fucking around with skycranes we could begin landing stuff on mars by crashing it into the now exposed confetti and digging it out somehow.

is there a link for this?

>>5578838
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/Mars-has-Front-Row-Seat-for-2014-Comet-194306441.html

better ones probably exist

>>5578843
Thanks.
Please Mars, take one for the team.

Hope one of the rovers or sats gets a great view of it.

If this doesn't get governments to fund space programs, nothing will.

>>5578658
>kinda kills prospects of mars colonization for a few centuries though
How so? The dust storms will die out in a few years time and there's more ice out there to be had.

shit... imagine if a piece of that comet lands near the rover!
Imagine that... Looking in a crashed piece of a comet for things :D.

>>5578728

we did that to the moon in the LCROSS, but the time window's already passed, we wouldn't reach mars in time.

>>5578889

I wonder how much notice we'll get of exactly where it's going to hit? Do you think if you pointed the rover in the right direction and just floored it, you'd make it in time? I mean it's not like you'll run out of gas, the thing's nuclear.

But, if mars *explodes* or huge chunk rips off and hits earth? possibly killing alot of people? any chance of happening?

>>5578943
What if it runs out of atoms?

>>5578943

I doubt it. That thing has a top speed of around 4 mph, and you have to stop it every 50 meters or so for a day the people on Earth can plan out the next section of it's course. It will run out of energy to move it 12 years or so, I think.

I imagine that we will send another rover if the comet hits. Do any of the current (working) rovers have seismographs on them?

>>5578930

If that thing lands anywhere near the rover we'll be looking at a four billion dollar pile of scrap metal.

>>5578943
Assuming the comet nucleus is the stated minimum of 12 kilometers diameter, it will result in a crater of roughly 150 kilometer diameter.

The fireball will be bright enough to cause significant thermal damage (melting, ignition, thermal decomposition, thermal shock, etc.) within viewing range, maybe up to five hundred kilometers from the impact. For example, if a human was there to see it, he would probably get second- or third-degree burns through his visor.

The impact will cause a groundshock 10+ on Richter scale.

Ten centimeter diameter ejecta from the impact will cover an area up to 1500 kilometers from ground zero, with centimeter diameter ejecta traveling maybe twice that.

Pressure wave effects will be difficult to calculate, but will probably kick up a lot of dust all over Mars.

>>5578971
Adding to that, the Curiosity can move at a top speed of 1.5"/s, if we round that down to one inch and assume 18 months of time, the rover could cover a bit over 1100 kilometers from now till impact.

Given the uncertainty in the comet trajectory, the large area affected by the possible impact and the low speed of the rover, it's very improbable that it could avoid destruction.

If the comet hits, it's gonna hit the southern hemisphere, possibly in the Hellas Planitia region, anywhere from 1000 to 8000 kilometers from the rover.

So whether the rover survives is a coin toss.

>>5578658
>non-zero chance of an impact event
Why not just say it might hit mars. It's equally informative but sounds less "wannabe scentist"-y.

>>5578658
Also, why are you using miles to measure the comet and kilometers to measure the maximum distance from the comet to mars as it passes by?

>>5578658 >unless all that heat and water vapor might actually give us a starting point for terraforming? hmmm?

We don't have the technology to make use of this event so if anything, Mars missions will be shelved until further notice.

Even a very mild progress in terraforming will cost hundreds of billions, no one will agree with this.

>>5579042
non-zero is far less likely than 'might'

>>5578966
True, if that does happen i hope it has time to
snap some pictures and send them back home.

>>5579085
My point still stands as I was pointing out that none of them actually give any sort of accurate description of the probability of it hitting mars.

>>5579093
The event is still so far away that we can only say "it's improbable", not much else.

>>5579112
Yeah. That was my point.

>>5578658
wouldn't that make the planet uninhabitable for a couple centuries?

>>5579141
Well, it's already uninhabitable so no real loss there.

To be honest, we don't really know what would happen. We've never seen anything like this before, beyond Shoemaker smacking into Jupiter, which is a significantly different environment. Part of the reason people kind of want this thing to collide is that it would give us an idea of what would happen in a major impact event on a rocky planet.

>>5579145
what i mean is right now it's just windy as fuck but it has sunshine and polar caps so we can still drive around with robots or send people there in space suits
but if the meteor hits all the whirled up dust blocks the sun and it'll get cold or something

>>5579151
But what the comet also could do is bring more
water to mars which could provide very interesting
new missions.

>>5578658
>few centuries
>>5579141
>couple centuries
NO! NO! FUCK YOU!!
NOT CENTURIES, NOT EVEN DECADES!!
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUCCCKKKK!!!!!!

>>5579178
even if 12-25 miles sound huge i don't think it'd be enough water to put much change on that planet at all

>>5579207
Ach, i think you are right.

Mars ice is currently 30 percent water. If temperatures rose all that water would be gaseous and the atmosphere get quite thicker. All pluses.
"The part of the cap that survives the summer is called the north residual cap and is made of water ice. This water ice is believed to be as much as three kilometers thick" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_polar_ice_caps#North_polar_cap

How the fuck could you move 50 km object from its orbit? Consider that we have 1.5 to think of a way, construct the machine and fly over there

Impossible

>>5579301
Alittle bit at a time?

>>5579304
We have only 1.5 years, and it takes how long to even get there, like 1 year? Could you move it in 6 months?

>>5578719
It already happened once, with the Shoemaker comet that hit Jupiter.

>>5579301
Ever heard of Nuclear Pulse Propulsion? Just the cooler most powerful currently realizable form of propulsion known by people? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29

"Energy Limited"
Orion

Ship diameter (meters) 20,000 m
Mass of empty ship (metric tons) 10,000,000 t (incl.5,000,000 t copper hemisphere)
+Number of bombs = total bomb mass (each 1 Mt bomb weighs 1 metric ton) 30,000,000
=Departure mass (metric tons) 40,000,000 t
Maximum velocity (kilometers per second) 1000 km/s (=0.33% of the speed of light)
Mean acceleration (Earth gravities) 0.00003 g (accelerate for 100 years)
Time to Alpha Centauri (one way, no slow down) 1330 years
Estimated cost 1 year of U.S. GNP (1968), $3.67 Trillion

>>5579327
Yeah, i know about that but it's impossible to build it in 1.5 years.

Although it would be cool to build a shuttle using nuclear propulsion, fill it with nukes and just crash it into that comet

>>5579327
>Ship diameter (meters) 20,000 m

wat. 20km diameter?

>>5579309
Me personally? I'm not superman.

>>5579333
Are you serious right now?
Crash it into the comet?
Fuck's sake...

Also you use impossible way to much. Switch it up with alittle bit of "improbable" or "unlikely" now and again.

>>5579333
Its not impossible. If there was enough people to donate to a credible company it could be built.
Governments would use 10x that money over and would never build it. Just like the US did irl.

>>5579359
Yes, companies thrive to give money for projects like crashing a comet onto Mars. Imagine all the profit they'll get from that investment....yeah, no.

>>5579385
Yes, companies thrive to give money for projects like blowing up explosives in a mountainside. Imagine all the profit they'll get from that investment....yeah, no.

>>5579396
Are you really this stupid? Before that mine was made it was at east 10+ years of area exploration. They sure as fuck won't build some deep hole and spend bazzilion of jewgold just to find out if there's something valuable.

>comet about to hit mars
>gets real close
>everyone is cheering
>comet slingshots off Mars' orbit towards Earth
>tfw

The actual profit would come from the management. Just like a charity, there would have to be oversight so the money is well spent, not like goverments or public institutions.

>>5579411
>Before that mine was made it was at east 10+ years of area exploration.
Oh, sorry, I forgot that we haven't sent any probes or rovers to Mars, nor have we mapped any mineral abundances.

I'm not even gonna go to all the other reasons to go there, because I have a feeling you would find them compelling anyway.

>>5579454
Well go ahead, tell me specific details, how deep are Mars valuable resources? How are you going to bring em here? How are you going to build anything there? Don't get me wrong i fully support your idea but private companies sure as fuck don't want to accept risk as huge as that one

>>5579315
Not really comparable, since they just vanished in the atmosphere.

I calculated the impact effects. It counts for a 20 miles diameter asteroid and 500 miles distance from the impact site.

Distance from Impact: 805.00 km ( = 500.00 miles )
Projectile diameter: 32.20 km ( = 20.00 miles )
Projectile Density: 8000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 60.00 km per second ( = 37.30 miles per second )
Impact Angle: 60 degrees
Target Density: 2750 kg/m3
Target Type: Crystalline Rock


Crater Dimensions:

What does this mean?


Transient Crater Diameter: 397 km ( = 247 miles )
Transient Crater Depth: 140 km ( = 87.2 miles )

Final Crater Diameter: 870 km ( = 540 miles )
Final Crater Depth: 2.27 km ( = 1.41 miles )
The crater formed is a complex crater.
The volume of the target melted or vaporized is 1.94e+06 km3 = 465000 miles3
Roughly half the melt remains in the crater, where its average thickness is 15.6 km ( = 9.71 miles ).

Thermal Radiation:

What does this mean?


Time for maximum radiation: 21 seconds after impact

Your position is inside the fireball.
The fireball appears 342 times larger than the sun
Thermal Exposure: 1.76 x 1011 Joules/m2
Duration of Irradiation: 4.56 hours
Radiant flux (relative to the sun): 10700

Air Blast:

What does this mean?


The air blast will arrive approximately 40.7 minutes after impact.
Peak Overpressure: 2.5e+07 Pa = 250 bars = 3550 psi
Max wind velocity: 4020 m/s = 8990 mph
Sound Intensity: 148 dB (Dangerously Loud)

The major seismic shaking will arrive approximately 2.68 minutes after impact.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 11.8 (This is greater than any earthquake in recorded history)

>>5579469
>Private companies don't want the risks
First I wasn't talking about private companies taking the risk for profit. I was talking about private institutions and people to donate so a company can achieve that goal independent of profit from the goal.
The goal was to build a nuclear pulse propulsion spaceship to stop the comet, not colonize mars or even get there.
It has to be on donations specially because there is little material profit to be made from that specific end which was brought up here
>>5579301
I don't exactly why he said that it would be impossible but my answer was that it was not given enough donations.
Then you turned it into an argument about profit which it never was.
>>5579385

>>5579521
how can the projectile density be more than the target density??

>>5579536
some asteroids consist of iron.
Mars is mostly solid rock. And iron is heavier than rock.

>>5579538
yeah but even if it's iron it's not solid iron it would be more like foam with lots of cavities

>>5579531
I don't think you understand how much money would get involved in that operation, private donations won't cover anything.

>>5579542
asteroids hit planets with 50 - 60 km per second. the calculator is for earth. i have no idea what an asteroid impact looks like when there's no atmosphere on the planet (yes, mars don't has air)

Now that would provide a nice boost to space budgets.

We should trill the solar system and actually direct the cvomet into a direct impact with mars. so we can study the effects of a catastrophic impact.

>>5579327
How would that work in space? Doesn't shockwaves need an atmosphere to work in?

>>5579555
yes,it counts for earth. i think it will hit earth. this will help you preparing

>>5579542

No, there are trillions of asteroids that are literally solid iron. Big chunks of solid iron.

>>5579565
how would solid iron from in space?

>>5579574
Billions of years and high pressure work wonders

>>5579577
high pressure? how so?

>>5579574
there are various ways, when a supernova occurs quadrillions of tons of liquid superhot iron are blown into space. it looks like water because it's liquid. when it cools down, it sticks together of course and forms asteroids of various size and shape!

>>5579435
made me lol hard, text and image 10/10

>>5578719

You're an idiot. This has already been observed and recorded to have happened to the Moon.

>>5579582
Fuck off, underageb&.

>>5579545
If there are not enough private donations it wont be the government that will do it. They spend 10 bucks for every 1 buck they pretend to use for the stated goal.
It is not that private donations wouldn't cover, its that is so much money the government won't stop until it takes over.
It just shows there is not enough people interested in averting the comet collision on Mars. Not that it wouldn't work.

>>5578966
VAPORIZED scrap metal

i just hope the MRO can record the rover's last visual moments as the blast wave hits, that would be cool

>>5579265
this is what i'm excited about, toss all that water into the atmosphere as vapor and we MIGHT get a runaway greenhouse effect since water vapor is an amazingly effective greenhouse gas
the atmospheric dust will hamper this, though, so the exact opposite may happen

That happened to Saturn about 15 years ago as I recall with my oldfag branestem

>>5579782

Jupiter, that is. Whatever one with the permanent hurricane

>>5579435

I would lol, hard

>>5579521
>>5579523
>9,000 mph shockwave
>148dB noise
jesus fuck
question, does this calculator have a variable for atmospheric pressure?

>>5579583
historically yes, but being able to see it in real time would be one hell of a treat
however the chances of it happening are probably something like one in one thousand. pretty enormous in impact terms, but rather remote in real terms

y is dis important?

>>5579354
>you use impossible way to much
>he says impossible once in his post

>>5579848
>People can only make one post on 4chan.

>>5579856
>having a trip on /sci/
>being this pathetic

>>5579863
>First time using a trip in over a year
>Immediate anon butthurt and attacking the trip instead of countering the argument using reason
I remember now why I stopped using it.
But fuck you anyway, I'll keep it on.

>>5579354 >Also you use impossible way to much. Switch it up with alittle bit of "improbable" or "unlikely" now and again.

Apply physical constraints from manufacturing methods and you will see that it is literally impossible in 1.5 years.

Improbable/unlikely just doesn't cut it.

It's improbable that your identity will be respected after your comments on this matter.

>>5579889
>Apply physical constraints from manufacturing method
Which physical constraints and which manufacturing methods?
Stop pulling stuff out of your ass to sound smart.
If you had enough money you could outsource the production of individual parts to a multitude of different manufacturing companies and facilities and assemble the parts as they became available.
Not impossible.

>>5579896

Example

>>5579327 Number of bombs = total bomb mass (each 1 Mt bomb weighs 1 metric ton) 30,000,000

547.5 days
30,000,000 tonnes/units of bombs

54,794.5 bombs per day
38 bombs per minute
0.6 per second

Assuming infrastructure is already designed, built and in place (which it isn't), materials are mined and processed ready for manufacture (which they aren't), zero time for testing products, zero maintenance on plant, zero time for transportation and assembly, manpower is not considered.

>>5579896 >If you had enough money you could outsource the production of individual parts to a multitude of different manufacturing companies and facilities and assemble the parts as they became available.

Money doesn't magically make things happen you dolt. Logistically it's a nightmare, add to it the fact you're handling nuclear material it's a political nightmare too. Also note the fact there are few companies already equipped for this work.

>>5579896 >Stop pulling stuff out of your ass to sound smart.

Stop imagining things and getting upset when someone lets you know you're wrong.

>>5579093 >My point still stands as I was pointing out that none of them actually give any sort of accurate description of the probability of it hitting mars.

It's because they don't have an accurate description of the probability other than "non-zero"

"Non-zero" literally means it's not zero.

"Might" means nothing and is bad use of language.

>>5579936
That example assumes you are using the 20,000 meter diameter ship.
Why the fuck would that be necessary? You don't need to fly the comet to a distant star. All it needs is a miniscule nudge.

>Stop imagining things and getting upset when someone lets you know you're wrong.
I would be fine if it was someone proving me wrong instead of just making an obvious attempt at insulting me motivated by the fact that I just put on a trip.
I don't understand why people are immediately so hostile if you use a tripcode.
And no, I don't use it for /sci/ specifically. If you use a tripcode on 4chan it goes across all the boards.

>>5579949
To be fair, this is just nitpicking.

>>5579789
No, he's using Purdue's "impact sim", which accounts only for Earth-like conditions.

Atmospheric density on Mars is about 1% that of Earth's, if it did impact there's the possibility it may not airburst at all.

>>5579521
>Projectile Density: 8000 kg/m3
>Comet
You're about 8 times too dense

>>5579966
>I would be fine if it was someone proving me wrong instead of just making an obvious attempt at insulting me motivated by the fact that I just put on a trip.

I'm hostile to everyone equally. You're only imagining it's because of the trip because you're wearing the trip.

You made some arsey comments and people have responded in an arsey fashion. The fact you're being singled out is entirely your fault because you have chosen to be singled out. Stop complaining.

How would this affect the Earth, if at all?

>>5579207
4*(10km)^3*pi/3 gives us volume around 4200 km^3
1m^3 of water is 1000kg which leaves us with 4,2*10^12 kg of water. It's enough to increase water vapor percentage by a very small amount and water vapor is an excellent greenhouse gas, which again results in increase in average temperature. Of course this is all not counting in the dust shitstorm that will come after the strike.

>>5578658
And they want us to leave the safety of earth.

Stupid liberals, earth is cozy enough as is without the risk of 30mile wide comets.

Won't = 0 chance
Might = non-zero chance
Will = 100% chance

What is vague about that? Oh right, I forgot, using stilted language is more sciencey. Also translating names for things into Latin.

I'm scared of the government

>Mars' face when it hits Curiosity head-on

>>5578971
>fireball
>no atmosphere
>no oxigen
lel

I imagine the incredible heat created by the impact could vaporize a shitload of ice/carbon/etc.

High enough temperatures and we could see a nice percent or two increase in greenhouse-type gases. Something like this could start a process of environmental change on a planet that is pretty stagnant atm.

Good luck with that. Non-zero probably means 1E-17 or so

>>5580508
"greenhouse-type gases"

good day sir, do you happen to know what gases Mars' atmosphere is made up of? do you happen to know what structures "the greenhouse gases" are? have you a diploma with chem on it? THINK ABOUT IT.

>>5580645
Like I do have a lot of chemical experience but I have no clue what Mars' atmosphere is currently made up of. I just realised that if there is ice that goes deep in mars, giving all that shit loads of energy would provide a good way to turn it from solid to gas. Everyone else was just crying about kinetic energy and not heat.

Calm down bro.

>>5580645
Thanks for making me look that up actually. Fuck. Superheated H2O mixed with shit loads of CO2 is a perfect way to create some more interesting chemistry on mars. Do want.

>even better than smacking Phobos into it

this is worth some calculation
how much planetary heat would the ejecta cloud create?

during the chixulub event, the exact opposite point on the earth from the impact (somewhere in china or so) got to about 300 degrees F for a few hours just from atmospheric heating.

if this raises mars' ambient temp over the poles ABOVE freezing point, possibly even to boiling point, you stand a good chance of putting the poles into the atmosphere as water vapor as well as the various layers of permafrost, and that's a pretty substantial atmosphere right there.

PLEASE LET THIS HAPPEN HOLY SHIT

>>5578966
>>5579769
Poor little rover

His twitter is adorable

>>5579769
although on further consideration, the flash from the impact could probably melt most of MRO into gloop let alone fry its camera.

they're going to need to position the various mars surveyors on the far side of the planet from the impact so they don't get toasted

>>5579515
Vanished/ Projected a massive amount of gas out of Juipter's atmosphere and left visible scars on the surface some the size of earth.

I can see how you got confused.

>>5580879
pffft

>>5579971
He's right though. That guy who brought it up was nitpicking and wrong.

>lands on curiosity

this is what im scared about. What if it destroys Curiosity and Opportunity? US would probably get butthurt over the space terrorist rocks and declare war on space.

>>5580974
>mfw Clapistan starts calling space rocks Terror-forming

>>5580974
Surely this is the best way of getting the US to continue space investment?

Not like I actually want them to do that. We need to stop fucking about in space and sort out the planet we actually have got now.

What if the comet hits mars and then mars hits earth?

>>5580998
What if the comet hits mars, melts all the water and makes it into a massive ball of water.

Then this massive ball of water collides with the sun (massive ball of fire), and we can finally settle that discussion.

>>5581004
>massive ball of water
>massive ball of fire

No... just no. mars as water would be a miniscule body of water compared to the massive ball of fire that's the sun.

That's not to say it wouldn't affect the sun however.

>>5580974
>2013
>We've had engagement across the entire planet in the global war on terrorism (GWOT)
>Comet fucks up our colonist brobot
>Galatic War on Terrorism is declared, all oil is drilled, nuclear power plant construction is expedited to meet rising energy demands
>All of middle east unites hand-in-hand to stop terrorist comets
>The sound of 7 billion hands clapping
So glorious