OT- Impact of an asteriod hitting Eastern USA

[Phoenix-D]

Narf, nuke warheads are always measured in kilotons of TNT, the amount of that required to produce an equvilent explosion.

The problem is in space, you have no air. No air and you have no overpressure, no bLast wave..no concusive effects. Its conciveable that even the space shuttle could survive a fairly near miss with a nuke in space, most of the force is lost.

[oleg]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Narf, nuke warheads are always measured in kilotons of TNT, the amount of that required to produce an equvilent explosion.

The problem is in space, you have no air. No air and you have no overpressure, no bLast wave..no concusive effects. Its conciveable that even the space shuttle could survive a fairly near miss with a nuke in space, most of the force is lost.

I doubt that. It is still a HUGE amount of energy reliased. Lack of air removes the shock wave, but insted we will have a stream of sublight-speed particles that are no longer opposed by atmosphere density. We will still have the same sort of "front wave", now propogating with the speed of light. If you remember from nukes explosions, staff around the center was evaporated. It is caused by photons, not a shockwave !

[tesco samoa]

maybe drill into the astroid and release the bomb ??

[Phoenix-D]

Originally posted by oleg:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Narf, nuke warheads are always measured in kilotons of TNT, the amount of that required to produce an equvilent explosion.

The problem is in space, you have no air. No air and you have no overpressure, no bLast wave..no concusive effects. Its conciveable that even the space shuttle could survive a fairly near miss with a nuke in space, most of the force is lost.

I doubt that. It is still a HUGE amount of energy reliased. Lack of air removes the shock wave, but insted we will have a stream of sublight-speed particles that are no longer opposed by atmosphere density. We will still have the same sort of "front wave", now propogating with the speed of light. If you remember from nukes explosions, staff around the center was evaporated. It is caused by photons, not a shockwave !

---

And the shuttle has these nice heat-resisting tiles. Depends how "near" the near miss is I suppose, though you're right the shrapnel might be nasty.

[Roanon]

Originally posted by oleg:
but insted we will have a stream of sublight-speed particles that are no longer opposed by atmosphere density. We will still have the same sort of "front wave", now propogating with the speed of light. If you remember from nukes explosions, staff around the center was evaporated. It is caused by photons, not a shockwave !

Well, if you think of sublight-speed particles, you should certainly not select photons . Also, there is relatively few resistance to them (or other particles) from atmoshpere density, at least here on earth. Not even on Jupiter. Except on diskworld, I have not yet seen light been slowed down by air .
If you mean alpha particles, neutrons, or anything else like that - the evaporation of the staff in the center may be caused by them, but not via measurable concussive force. This is matter destruction on a molecular/atomic level, and while you may be able to turn a small portion of said asteroid into dust its course will not be affected in any way.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ok. but i suppose if we really want to know, we're going to have to blow up a nuke in space.

[Captain Kwok]

Originally posted by Roanon:
Except on diskworld, I have not yet seen light been slowed down by air .

Are you sure? It happens every day for me...the speed of light here through air on Earth is .9998c - a measly difference of just under 90,000 m/s.