How Can We Effectively Destroy An Asteroid Headed for Earth?

[LURCH]

Thanks Jim.
Interestuing that this thread should get resurected now. I just read an article about a possible impactor headed for Mars. All scenarios for defending Earth from an impact rely no the early detection and accurate prediction f the impending impact event. If the asteroid 2007 WD5 hits Mars, it will do so within the month, and still nobody can say for sure. Not a very promissing sign.

 

[baywax]

Thanks Jim.
Interestuing that this thread should get resurected now. I just read an article about a possible impactor headed for Mars. All scenarios for defending Earth from an impact rely no the early detection and accurate prediction f the impending impact event. If the asteroid 2007 WD5 hits Mars, it will do so within the month, and still nobody can say for sure. Not a very promissing sign.

How accurately was the Shoemaker-Levi event predicted?

 

[James Essig]

Hi LURCH and baywax;

Thanks for your comments and feedback.

Given that a one megaton nuclear warhead releases the energy to fully vaporize 2 million metric tons of water ice or 2 million cubic meters of ice, and by virtue of many minerals' and metals' much lower heat of vaporization and specific heat compared to water, an equal volume of many of these much denser minerals and compounds could be vaporized by a one megaton device. I would have to say that if the energy of a one megaton nuclear detonation could be evenly distributed throughout a 450 foot diameter asteriod, the asteriod could be completely vaporized by such a device.

Note, that a surface detonation of only a one megaton nuclear warhead will produce a crater 200 feet deep and 1000 feet wide in hard rock, even in consideration that much of the blast energy of a surface nuclear detonation is instantly reflected back away from the ground. I would have to say that a robust deep asteriod penetrating one megaton nuclear warhead should be able to vaporize completely at least a 100 meter diameter asteriod. A 100 meter diameter asteriod would have a mass on the order of 1.5 million tons.

Such an asteriod hitting the surface of the Earth at a typical 20 Km/Sec would have a yield of (1.5 x 10 EXP 6)((7) EXP 2) tons of TNT or about 75 megatons which is almost as powerful as the most powerful publically agknowledge H-Bomb design of the former U.S.S.R. at 100 megatons. Such a 75 megatons explosion would be catastrophic if it happened in New York City, Mexico City, Tokyo, Beijing or other very large metro area.

Note that the thermal pulse of the Russian 58 megaton Tsar Bomba tested in 1961 in an airburst over a remote Arctic island location would have caused fatal third degree burns in humans at a distance of 100 kilometers from the blast epicenter. Although detonated 2.5 miles above the ground over the island, the rock crust beneath the blast was turned to ash. A woman who later visited the test side was amazed when she saw and noted that the blast zone was licked clean and shinny like an ice skating rink, all traces of uneveness in the rocks where melted and swepted away. Such an explosion's thermal pulse is large enough in the extent of its effects to completely set ablaze the entire land mass of many smaller nations and several of the smaller states within the U.S..

Clearly even only a 100 meter diameter asteriod, although not able to wipe out the human race, could produce totally unacceptable losses of property and human life. A direct nuclear strike by a typcial 0.475 megaton to one megaton yield warhead may be our only option in dealing with 100 meter diameter class asteriods on relatively short notice. Note that perhaps a couple to a few W-88 nuclear warheads such as those stationed aboard U.S. Ohio Class SSBM boats could probably do the job. The yield of one W-88 warhead is about 0.475 megatons or 475 kilotons.

Much larger asteriods might be destroyable with nuclear devices of much higher yield given enough lead time to construct and/or deploy such devices. Super large asteriods could be deflected potentially with a high yield stand off neutron bomb detonation wherein the intense neutron flux would penetrate several meters into the asteriod vaporizing the surface layer of the asteriod thus allowing the momentum imparted to the asteriod for course correction to be maximized by the recoil produced by the reaction between the hot very high pressured vaporized surface layer in gaseous form and the bulk of the remaining asteriod.

Best Regards;

Jim Essig

 

[baywax]

Hi LURCH and baywax;

I would have to say that if the energy of a one megaton nuclear detonation could be evenly distributed throughout a 450 foot diameter asteriod, the asteriod could be completely vaporized by such a device.

How does one evenly distribute the energy of a one megaton nuclear detonation throughout an asteroid?

Do we get someone like Bruce Willis out there drilling holes for and even distribution?

 

[James Essig]

Hi baywax;

Thanks for the response.

You make an excellent point. If one is going to go through the trouble of bringing the hardware and/or explosives such as dynamite to drill a hole to the center of the asteriod, why not just attach a large effecient chemical rocket to nudge it out of the way. Perhaps on relatively short notice, a assemblage of powerful chemical rockets might do the job. Assumming that perhaps 2000 metric tons of rocket propellent would be used wherein the energy of propellent to asteriod velocity vector changing kinetic energy would be equal to 50 %, one can imagine the rocket system pushing on the asteriod to change its velocity by as much as about 100 meters per second which is very significant giving enough lead time assumming that the mass specific energy release for the combined masses of the rocket fuel components is roughly equal to that of TNT detonation. At the very least, the asteriod might be directed into a mid-ocean environment or to the middle of Antartica where it would likely do much less harm than if it hit a populated area.

Another draw back of nuking asteriods at very close range is the spread of the radioactive fallout cloud or a significant portion of it composed of radioactive gas, condensed particles, and soot from the destroyed asteriod. The whole planet could receive an unsafe dose of radioactive fallout at best.

Personally, I kind of like the huge chemical rocket idea in part because we understand chemical rockets very well. Scaling them up to huge proportions however would take some doing. But, better safe than sorry.

Thanks;

Jim Essig

 

[stewartcs]

At the very least, the asteriod might be directed into a mid-ocean environment or to the middle of Antartica where it would likely do much less harm than if it hit a populated area.

Everything I've seen on the Discovery channel about asteroid impacts seem to indicate that it wouldn't matter where it hit, the subsequent damage would be propogated around the earth. I also remeber seeing something about the force of impact traveling through the center of the Earth and causing greater damage on the other side. Of course the size and velocity of the asteroid would dictate how much damage was done.

CS

 

[DaveC426913]

I also remeber seeing something about the force of impact traveling through the center of the Earth and causing greater damage on the other side. Of course the size and velocity of the asteroid would dictate how much damage was done.

CS

As for the planetoid that hit Mars and made the giant http://www.davesbrain.ca/whims_mars_atlas.php?map=altitude&labels=on" *, just ask the former residents of the Tharsis bulge and the Valles Marineris.

* sorry, IE only.

 

[baywax]

As for the planetoid that hit Mars and made the giant http://www.davesbrain.ca/whims_mars_atlas.php?map=altitude&labels=on" *, just ask the former residents of the Tharsis bulge and the Valles Marineris.

* sorry, IE only.

Yes, it is also possible that an impact also took half of Mar's crust off.

Hemispheres Apart: The Crustal Dichotomy on Mars
Thomas R. Watters,1 Patrick J. McGovern,2 and Rossman P. Irwin III1
1Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560; email: watterst@si.edu

2Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas 77058

Abstract The hemispheric dichotomy is a fundamental feature of Mars, expressed by a physiographic and geologic divide between the heavily cratered southern highlands and the relatively smooth plains of the northern lowlands. The origin of the dichotomy, which may have set the course for most of the subsequent geologic evolution of Mars, remains unclear. Internally driven models for the dichotomy form the lowlands by mantle convection, plate tectonics, or early mantle overturn. Externally driven models invoke one giant impact or multiple impacts. Areal densities of buried basins, expressed by quasi-circular depressions and subsurface echoes in radar sounding data, suggest that the dichotomy formed early in the geologic evolution of Mars. Tectonic features along the dichotomy boundary suggest late-stage modification by flexure or relaxation of the highlands after volcanic resurfacing of the northern lowlands. Subsequent deposition and erosion by fluvial, aeolian, and glacial processes shaped the present-day dichotomy boundary.

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.35.031306.140220

 

[baywax]

Hi baywax;

Thanks for the response.

You make an excellent point. If one is going to go through the trouble of bringing the hardware and/or explosives such as dynamite to drill a hole to the center of the asteriod, why not just attach a large effecient chemical rocket to nudge it out of the way. Perhaps on relatively short notice, a assemblage of powerful chemical rockets might do the job. Assumming that perhaps 2000 metric tons of rocket propellent would be used wherein the energy of propellent to asteriod velocity vector changing kinetic energy would be equal to 50 %, one can imagine the rocket system pushing on the asteriod to change its velocity by as much as about 100 meters per second which is very significant giving enough lead time assumming that the mass specific energy release for the combined masses of the rocket fuel components is roughly equal to that of TNT detonation. At the very least, the asteriod might be directed into a mid-ocean environment or to the middle of Antartica where it would likely do much less harm than if it hit a populated area.

Another draw back of nuking asteriods at very close range is the spread of the radioactive fallout cloud or a significant portion of it composed of radioactive gas, condensed particles, and soot from the destroyed asteriod. The whole planet could receive an unsafe dose of radioactive fallout at best.

Personally, I kind of like the huge chemical rocket idea in part because we understand chemical rockets very well. Scaling them up to huge proportions however would take some doing. But, better safe than sorry.

Thanks;

Jim Essig

Pretty complicated James! But, the big rocket idea seems more plausible than the idea of drilling into an asteroid and precisely planting a nuke for max. even distribution of energy. Besides, Bruce Willis probably isn't willing to risk his neck again for this one (re: the movie: Armageddon, 1998)

How about building boosters on Earth to get us out of the way!? Either way, I think there are groups who have dug themselves in for an occasion such as this. They've stashed their gold, oil, food, SUVs and swimming pools deep under the Rockies etc... Too bad they'll be the only ones representing the human race when all the dust, ash and crust settles.:-(

 

[James Essig]

Hi stewartcs and DaveC426913;

In fact I heard on the Discovery Channel that an asteriod of the size of that which blasted out the Yucatan Peninsula and perhaps killed off the dynosuars may have turned the entire atmosphere of planet Earth into a broiler thus killing any dynosuars that would have survived the initial blast wave as it circled the globe. Accordingly, there would be so much glowing red hot and white hot debris shot out into orbit around the Earth that the black body thermal emmissions from such debris would have roasted the surface of the Earths land mass and might have even caused ponds and shallow lakes to begin bioling. The animals that survived would be of the types that could borrow underground or dive underwater to take advantage of the thermal inertia of the ground and deep water.

Hi baywax;

I not sure what we could do if we saw a 6 to 10 mile wide asteriod heading for Earth and due to impact in a couple of weeks wherein the asteriod was of dark surface color and therefore missed by astonomers until a few weeks before doomsday. I suppose I would break out my grill or try to buy an outdoor turkey smoker and cook some real good final barbecued food. In such a case, mankind might have to impart on a crash course to produce as many nuclear warheads as we could and of unprecedented yield and let the asteriod have it either by many simultaneous and/or repeated direct hits or via stand off blasts that would gradually nudge the sucker out of the way via the surface layer high pressure gas prooducing ablative effects of the stand off nuclear detonations. In this scenario, short of this, I can't see what else we could do. In such a case, I completely agree with you that, unfortunately, all that humanity would have left to represent us after the smoke, fire, and dust settled out would be those folks hold up deep underground with those SUVs, oil depos, gold, food, and swimming pools: a rather scary thought!.

Thanks;

Jim

 

[stewartcs]

Hi stewartcs and DaveC426913;

In fact I heard on the Discovery Channel that an asteriod of the size of that which blasted out the Yucatan Peninsula and perhaps killed off the dynosuars may have turned the entire atmosphere of planet Earth into a broiler thus killing any dynosuars that would have survived the initial blast wave as it circled the globe. Accordingly, there would be so much glowing red hot and white hot debris shot out into orbit around the Earth that the black body thermal emmissions from such debris would have roasted the surface of the Earths land mass and might have even caused ponds and shallow lakes to begin bioling. The animals that survived would be of the types that could borrow underground or dive underwater to take advantage of the thermal inertia of the ground and deep water.

That was my point! It wouldn't matter where it hit on Earth if it was big and fast enough.

CS

 

[DaveC426913]

... an asteriod of the size of that which blasted out the Yucatan Peninsula and perhaps killed off the dynosuars may have turned the entire atmosphere of planet Earth into a broiler thus killing any dynosuars that would have survived the initial blast wave as it circled the globe. Accordingly, there would be so much glowing red hot and white hot debris shot out into orbit around the Earth that the black body thermal emmissions from such debris would have roasted the surface of the Earths land mass and might have even caused ponds and shallow lakes to begin bioling.

To my ear this sounds like quite an exaggeration of generally plausible and accepted events, but I can not be sure.

 

[baywax]

Hi baywax;

I not sure what we could do if we saw a 6 to 10 mile wide asteriod heading for Earth and due to impact in a couple of weeks wherein the asteriod was of dark surface color and therefore missed by astonomers until a few weeks before doomsday. I suppose I would break out my grill or try to buy an outdoor turkey smoker and cook some real good final barbecued food. In such a case, mankind might have to impart on a crash course to produce as many nuclear warheads as we could and of unprecedented yield and let the asteriod have it either by many simultaneous and/or repeated direct hits or via stand off blasts that would gradually nudge the sucker out of the way via the surface layer high pressure gas prooducing ablative effects of the stand off nuclear detonations. In this scenario, short of this, I can't see what else we could do. In such a case, I completely agree with you that, unfortunately, all that humanity would have left to represent us after the smoke, fire, and dust settled out would be those folks hold up deep underground with those SUVs, oil depos, gold, food, and swimming pools: a rather scary thought!.

Thanks;

Jim

Its interesting that you noted the low reflectivity and high light-absorbency of some asteroids... to the point of only reflecting 4 percent of the light hitting them.

That makes them particularly scary. These are called "ghouls" by some astronomers. Very hard to detect and therefore a cause for the learned types to be paranoid at all times.

Why not strike up the BBQ every day or the equivalent since it could be any day of the century that this impact could happen, with no one the wiser... except the outlandishly paranoid types who, at this very moment, are living underground, in artificial light, because they know there is very little warning about a bollide event taking place and being caused by a "GHOUL"!

This is an interesting topic, mind you, and I think we could come up with a solution that would favour the people of the Earth if we really put some effort into it. Your multiple hits from all angles by nukes is a good start. It would just have to be far enough away from Earth to help us avoid the radon clouds etc..

Another disconcerting thought is... we have never, overtly, exploded a nuke in space so we need to know what those effects are before we do. Who knows, it might cause a chain reaction of black holes sucking our solar system into another universe... beam me up Scottie!

 

[James Essig]

Hi baywax;

Thanks for the interesting info regarding the actual reflectivity of the GHOULS and related nomenclature.

It is hard to be certain what the extreme effects of space based nuclear detonations could be. I have heard of quasi-scientific notions that such effects could by chance produce electromagnetic space time bridges to other locations in space time including into the past or future. The result accordingly would be an electromagnetic wormhole produced by the device's low frequency electromagnetic pulse. If such could be produced, it might perhaps be dangerous for our civilization or life on Earth if the electromagnetic wormhole provided a link between the present and the past wherein energy or information could be transmitted into the past into the Earth wherein it might pose the possibility of changing the present in drastic ways.

Certain theories on the possible pluasibility of time travel suggest that a temporal causality censorship principle would prevent the travel into the past by persons, information, or energy form interfering with the present even in consideration of free will in the sense of actions not being completely determined by their causes. One version of such a conjecture holds that if a time traveler tried to change the present by changing the past freely or was in positions to perform a deterministically constrained act that could do such, nature would act to prevent such from happening such as by causing the time traveler to suddenly pop back into the present time and location from whence he left.

Another possibility is that such a time traveling act would result in the chance in the present to be realized in a parallel history of the type simmilar to those conjectured to exists in the "Many Worlds Interpretation" of quantum theory in which each act of the collapse of a wavefunction causes a branch of parallel history to be formed. Accordingly. there are ensembles if not infinities of new complete parelell histories forming all of the time as a result of each naturally occurring quantum act of decoherence even on microscopic particle levels.

If such electromagnetic wormholes are possible by remote chance, perhaps brought on by a chance electromagnetic low frequency radiation pattern of flux distribution, there is a real possibility that it could be very dangerous.

I think I remember that in the original "Planet of the Apes" series of books and movies, such an electromagnetic time warp is what caused the fusion powered long duration flight relativistic starship launched from Earth to enter a time portal and travel a few hundred years into the future wherein the crew members that survived the suspended animation process eventually came to realize that they had landed back on Earth in the distance future wherein the civilization that they had left behind was destroyed in a global nuclear holocuast.

I don't know if such electromagnetic time portals can exist but I can think of some additional ways that they might be realized although only in a general sense although I have no idea how one would actually be produced in detail either artificially or naturally. One way to view the electromagnetic force is that it is a fundamental force just like general relativistic gravity for which there is mounting mathematical and theoretical evidence that wormholes into the past, future, cosmically remote locations in space time within our universe can exist, and perhaps also travel into other universes or Big Bangs that remain at least causally weakly coupled to our universe or wherein such causality and information exchange ability, even if normally dorment, can be activited by rare natural or perhaps be artificial general relativistic gravity based wormholes on demand.

This, however, is a very fascinating subject to me as well.

Thanks;

Jim

 

[baywax]

Hi baywax;

Thanks for the interesting info regarding the actual reflectivity of the GHOULS and related nomenclature.

It is hard to be certain what the extreme effects of space based nuclear detonations could be. I have heard of quasi-scientific notions that such effects could by chance produce electromagnetic space time bridges to other locations in space time including into the past or future. The result accordingly would be an electromagnetic wormhole produced by the device's low frequency electromagnetic pulse. If such could be produced, it might perhaps be dangerous for our civilization or life on Earth if the electromagnetic wormhole provided a link between the present and the past wherein energy or information could be transmitted into the past into the Earth wherein it might pose the possibility of changing the present in drastic ways.

Certain theories on the possible pluasibility of time travel suggest that a temporal causality censorship principle would prevent the travel into the past by persons, information, or energy form interfering with the present even in consideration of free will in the sense of actions not being completely determined by their causes. One version of such a conjecture holds that if a time traveler tried to change the present by changing the past freely or was in positions to perform a deterministically constrained act that could do such, nature would act to prevent such from happening such as by causing the time traveler to suddenly pop back into the present time and location from whence he left.

Another possibility is that such a time traveling act would result in the chance in the present to be realized in a parallel history of the type simmilar to those conjectured to exists in the "Many Worlds Interpretation" of quantum theory in which each act of the collapse of a wavefunction causes a branch of parallel history to be formed. Accordingly. there are ensembles if not infinities of new complete parelell histories forming all of the time as a result of each naturally occurring quantum act of decoherence even on microscopic particle levels.

If such electromagnetic wormholes are possible by remote chance, perhaps brought on by a chance electromagnetic low frequency radiation pattern of flux distribution, there is a real possibility that it could be very dangerous.

I think I remember that in the original "Planet of the Apes" series of books and movies, such an electromagnetic time warp is what caused the fusion powered long duration flight relativistic starship launched from Earth to enter a time portal and travel a few hundred years into the future wherein the crew members that survived the suspended animation process eventually came to realize that they had landed back on Earth in the distance future wherein the civilization that they had left behind was destroyed in a global nuclear holocuast.

I don't know if such electromagnetic time portals can exist but I can think of some additional ways that they might be realized although only in a general sense although I have no idea how one would actually be produced in detail either artificially or naturally. One way to view the electromagnetic force is that it is a fundamental force just like general relativistic gravity for which there is mounting mathematical and theoretical evidence that wormholes into the past, future, cosmically remote locations in space time within our universe can exist, and perhaps also travel into other universes or Big Bangs that remain at least causally weakly coupled to our universe or wherein such causality and information exchange ability, even if normally dorment, can be activited by rare natural or perhaps be artificial general relativistic gravity based wormholes on demand.

This, however, is a very fascinating subject to me as well.

Thanks;

Jim

I was going to suggest using sonic energy to break a bollide apart but... sound can't travel in space.:-, (and that wouldn't suit the Nuclear Engineering section of PF anyway!)

 

[binzing]

Dunno if its been said already. Discover did a similar article about satellite destroying, and the science channel has done a show on it.

 

[baywax]

Pentagon prepares to destroy defunct spy satellite

The US Navy isn't going to launch a nuke at the broken spy satellite but this is a first for the the Pentagon. After criticizing China for blowing up one of its own worn satellites, the Pentagon has decided its the only option for this one or have it raining down rocket fuel on potential, earth-bound victims.

So I thought this story was along the lines of this thread in the terms that there will be a launch and it will be aimed at an orbiting body in space.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080214/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/dead_satellite

 

[James Essig]

Hi baywax;

Thanks for providing the above link. I should be an interesting test of the missile's capabilities.

Regards;

Jim Essig

 

[Astronuc]

The US Navy isn't going to launch a nuke at the broken spy satellite but this is a first for the the Pentagon. After criticizing China for blowing up one of its own worn satellites, the Pentagon has decided its the only option for this one or have it raining down rocket fuel on potential, earth-bound victims.

So I thought this story was along the lines of this thread in the terms that there will be a launch and it will be aimed at an orbiting body in space.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080214/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/dead_satellite

Apparently the missile to be used to intercept the satellite is a Standard Missile 3, a product of Raytheon. I uses a conventional warhead, not a nuclear warhead.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/sm3.htm

 

[James Essig]

Hi again;

It occurred to me inorder to completely avert the risk of material hitting the ground, perhaps the interceptor missle could be fitted with a 1 kiloton to 5 kiloton nuclear device that detonates a few meters away from the sattelite via proximatety sensor to completely ionize the sattelite. There might be some radiation risk but not as much radioactive fallout as a ground burst would produce.

Thanks;

Jim Essig

 

[baywax]

The mission to destroy the failing US spy satellite was a total success according to Pentagon officials.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080221/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/dead_satellite

 

[carstensentyl]

(A moderate asteroid is between a thousand and a million Gigatons. Does that put it in perspective?)

That is far more than the combined mining blast fragmentation on the planet. That's a special thing to consider when nuclear warheads are occassionally used to fragment bedrock for mining operations.

If a giant meteor is headed, we had better divert it (can our weapons even nudge it in another direction?) because we stand no chance of destroying most meteors, when our mining can't even tickle the thin crust of the planet we live on.

 

[James Essig]

Hi carstensentyl;

Thanks for the feedback.

Note that there is no limit to the size of a thermonuclear warhead theoretically.

A thermonuclear warhead with a mass of 10 EXP 15 metric tons or a with diameter of 100 kilometers would produce enough blast, ionizing radiation, and thermal energy, in short its energy yield, to completely vaporize 50 planets with the mass of the Earth that were frozen to the core considering the heat capacity, latent heat of fusion, and latent heat of vaporization of the materials out of which Earth is composed.

A thermonuclear warhead with the mass of the Earth could completely vaporize 100 million such planets.

A artificially produced white dwarf massed thermonuclear warhead could completely vaporize (150,000)(100,000,000) or 15 trillion planets with the mass of the Earth.

A larger thermonuclear device involves another more far out idea to gradually construct a huge white dwarf densitied thermonuclear device with the mass of about 10 EXP 6 solar masses wherein the finished product would be a rotating toriod with a diameter of about 6billion kilometers. The device could be gradually spun up until it reached the end of construction and a rotation velocity on the order of several hundred kilometers/second would prevent it from undergoing gravitational collapse before detonation. White dwarf dense toriodal material would allow for a thin aspect ratio toriod to reduce gravitational/rotational induced tidal forces which otherwise could tear the ring apart. A rotational velocity of say 500 km/second would permit the fusion energy yield to be efficiently stored at about 5,000 times greater than that of the rotational kinetic energy.

This baby would have a yield of 1,000,000 carbon detonation supernova and could completely vaporize 15 million trillion such planets or 15 x 10 EXP 18 such planets.

A still larger version of a ring 600 billion kilometers in diameter would have a yield of 100,000,000 carbon detonation supernova and would produce enough yield energy to completely vaporize 1.5 x 10 EXP 21 such planets. If one out of every 30 stars in our observable universe has a planet like Earth orbiting it, the number of all of such planets in the observable universe with the mass of the Earth would be about 1.5 x 10 EXP 21.

Using matter/antimatter toroidal configurations or concentric matter and antimatter toruses made of nuetron dense forms of matter and antimatter such as solid neutronium and antineutronium, devices with a mass of 10 EXP 14 solar masses with a sub black hole enclosed volume density and a radius of 20 lightyears would produce enough energy upon matter antimatter annihilation completely vaporize 1.5 x 10 EXP 29 planets with the mass of the Earth frozen to the core. This is equivalent to the entire baryonic mass within the observable universe. However, such a device would be ridiculous to construct because it would produce a great enough hard gamma ray flux to potentially kill of all extraterrestrial civilizations within the observable universe with a current radius of 13.7 billion lightyears. However, given a billion years of ever increasing human population within the universe and growth of our space based materials production and manufacturing infrastructure, we could probably build such a device.

I can think of possibly even much larger yield thermonuclear and matter antimatter devices composed of a layered arrangement of fusion or matter antimatter fuels and an exotic theoretical material known as negative mass which has yet to be discovered let alone produced. With judicious layering of fuels and negative mass in an onion like arrangement, in theory devices with infinite mass and infinite yield could be constructed given an infinite amount of time to construct them. If the life time of protons turns out to be finite, one could simply use eternally stable forms of quarkonium, a theoretical material with a density as great as 1,000 times that of the atomic nucleus in the construction of the cosmic onion.

In short, there really is no theoretical limit to the size and yield of the devices we can construct.

On the lighter side, a pure fusion thermonuclear device with the mass of a modern nuclear powered aircraft carrier would have a diameter of only about 200 feet and yet could completely vaporize an asteroid with the mass of (1/2)(100,000)(200,000,000) metric tons or 10 trillion tons. A cubic mile pure fusion device with an average density of water could completely vaporize a (1/2)(1,000,000,000)(200,000,000) metric ton asteroid or an asteroid with a diameter of 425 kilometers.

Note that if efficient mass drivers in the form of electromagnetic guns can be developed to launch payload after payload into Earth orbit, there is no reason why a highly efficient billion ton fission fusion fusion nuke could not be assembled in low Earth orbit in 10 to 20 years and used to attack any asteroid conceivable given enough lead time. Huge chemical rockets could set the nuke on course to ablissimate any conceivable asteroid.

Regards;

Jim

 

[baywax]

In short, there really is no theoretical limit to the size and yield of the devices we can construct.

On the lighter side, a pure fusion thermonuclear device with the mass of a modern nuclear powered aircraft carrier would have a diameter of only about 200 feet and yet could completely vaporize an asteroid with the mass of (1/2)(100,000)(200,000,000) metric tons or 10 trillion tons. A cubic mile pure fusion device with an average density of water could completely vaporize a (1/2)(1,000,000,000)(200,000,000) metric ton asteroid or an asteroid with a diameter of 425 kilometers.

Note that if efficient mass drivers in the form of electromagnetic guns can be developed to launch payload after payload into Earth orbit, there is no reason why a highly efficient billion ton fission fusion fusion nuke could not be assembled in low Earth orbit in 10 to 20 years and used to attack any asteroid conceivable given enough lead time. Huge chemical rockets could set the nuke on course to ablissimate any conceivable asteroid.

Regards;

Jim

Is there a record of what happens when you detonate a nuke in space?

 

[carstensentyl]

Baywax. I think nukes are actually stronger in space, but I could be mistaken since I know nothing about nuclear fission.

Jame's post has some very interesting pointers about how much destruction a nuclear weapon can cause. However, I do not agree that we will have the technology to send anything larger than a conventional space shuttle into space any time soon. I suppose that the parts could be assembled in space.

Do we have a means of detonating a large nuclear device? Isn't there some limit to the amount that we are capable of detonating?

 

[DaveC426913]

Baywax. I think nukes are actually stronger in space, but I could be mistaken since I know nothing about nuclear fission.

I doubt it. Much of the destruction is due to the pressure wave that is transmitted through the air. In space, all you'd get is the primary shock, which is limited tot he mas of the bomb itself.

Do we have a means of detonating a large nuclear device? Isn't there some limit to the amount that we are capable of detonating?

Well, since we don't have the means to build one, I'm not sure how we don't have the means to detonate one...


However, it is a chain reaction, so there's no reason why it should be particularly difficult.

 

[Astronuc]

Dave is correct. The detonation of a nuclear device has to do with it's architecture, not the environment surrounding it.

A large nuclear device would be thermonuclear in which the fusion assembly is triggered with a fission device (trigger). In the case of a satellite it would be overkill.

In the case of an asteroid, the objective would be to get the warhead as close as possible to the asteroid (and possibly in contact or shallow penetration). The nuclear explosion would be used to rapidly heat (via radiation) one side of the asteroid and use the effect of ablation to deflect the asteroid.

The approach may be dependent on the composition of the asteroid, e.g. ice vs stoney/metal.

 

[baywax]

Dave is correct. The detonation of a nuclear device has to do with it's architecture, not the environment surrounding it.

A large nuclear device would be thermonuclear in which the fusion assembly is triggered with a fission device (trigger). In the case of a satellite it would be overkill.

In the case of an asteroid, the objective would be to get the warhead as close as possible to the asteroid (and possibly in contact or shallow penetration). The nuclear explosion would be used to rapidly heat (via radiation) one side of the asteroid and use the effect of ablation to deflect the asteroid.

The approach may be dependent on the composition of the asteroid, e.g. ice vs stoney/metal.

So, because there is no atmosphere to transfer a lot of the energy from the blast to the object (in space) the device is going to work better if its embedded in the material. Like one of the bunker buster-type shells with a delayed detonation time?

 

[carstensentyl]

There has got to be some sort of limit to the size of the explosion. Jam-packing more material into the bomb just doesn't seem to do it for me. There must be a maximum detonation velocity. Of course, we can always create a bigger explosion with multiple warheads...

 

[Astronuc]

So, because there is no atmosphere to transfer a lot of the energy from the blast to the object (in space) the device is going to work better if its embedded in the material. Like one of the bunker buster-type shells with a delayed detonation time?

Nuclear weapons produce a tremendous quantity of radiation in a broad spectrum, not only in gamma and X-ray, as would be expected in a nuclear explosion, but also in UV, visible and infrared. Many people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki received burns from the bright light, as well as receiving UV, X-ray and gamma radiation which penetrated the skin and body according to energy level.

If a nuclear warhead is detonated near an asteroid, it would receive a burst of radiation which would heat some volume and cause some material to ablate.

If the warhead impacted, then detonated, then there would be some explosive removal of the asteroid material.

There has got to be some sort of limit to the size of the explosion.

Yes, there is an optimal yield-size relationship, but that details would not be discussed in a public forum.