2025-09-19 20:31 UTC
Reminder that the dinosaurs had no meteor monitoring and defense agency, 66,050,000 years ago.
And if they had, it wouldn't have done a blind bit of good; the Chixculub impactor was a 10km diameter rock—bigger than Mount Everest—coming in at 20km/sec—well above escape velocity (12km/sec).
You're not going to deflect THAT with a well-placed nuke unless you spot it decades ahead of showtime ... it'd be like trying to deflect a supertanker with a rubber band gun.
Replies (1)
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@isaackuo@spacey.space 2025-09-19 20:38
@cstross@wandering.shop That's a fun idea to play out. An asteroid that size would have been very visible as a potential threat many centuries in advance, giving a lot of time for even a small nudge to cause a miss. Asteroids that size aren't much affected by various complications like the YORP effect or Yarkovsky effect, making precise long term predictions of its future location possible. Hmm ...