NASA aims to destroy an Empire State Building-sized asteroid

Bebo@lemm.ee to Science@beehaw.org – 71 points – NASA aims to destroy an Empire State Building-sized asteroid
interestingengineering.com

Astronomers have been closely monitoring Bennu, which swings close to Earth every six years. However, the real cause for concern arises from the possibility that on September 24, 2182, Bennu could collide with our planet with a force equivalent to 22 atomic bombs. While the odds of such a catastrophic strike are estimated at 1 in 2,700, NASA is not taking any chances.

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a force equivalent to 22 atomic bombs.

What kind of murica unit is this?

Also there is a pretty big difference between 22 Davy Crocketts and 22 Tsar Bombas.

Wikipedia (citing NASA) states that the force would be 1,200 megatons in TNT equivalent. Tsar Bombas being 54 megatons, Bennu is 22 Tsar Bombas.

A Davy Crockett is 254 square inch per fahrenheit-crocodiles, so we're obviously talking about an explosion of roughly 76 cubic pound per school shooting.

Are we talking saltwater- or marsh crocodiles here?

Comparing high-energy events, especially ones that cause destruction, to weapons that have been used is very common, not just in "murica"

The lack of specificity as to what kind of atomic bomb is silly, though.

Yeah, usually you put it into TNT equivalants. Which in itself isn't useful, but it allows me to look up which order of magnituted of atomic bomb we're talking about. And somebody actually put in the work and it is 22 of the biggest bombs ever. (which ironically are Sovjet, not Murican).

Anyway, It was really just a cheap "Americans don't use metric joke", don't overthink it.

Comparing high-energy events, especially ones that cause destruction, to weapons that have been used is very common, not just in “murica”

can you provide a few examples?

I really need to hear how many football fields can fit on this asteroid before being able to judge its size

Empire State Buldings not doing it for you?

The same kind that lists the Empire State Building in the headline, like it's the 1930s and that's still impressive.

Simple, ~88,400 hamburgers is too big of a number to reasonably visualize.

That's 150 years away, nobody's going to do shit until 2181, and then the whole world will freak out saying "why hasn't anyone done anything yet!?"

References: climate change, housing collapse in Western countries.

In 120 years, people will likely have a better idea of what the trajectory of Bennu will be. No one currently alive needs to do anything at all about this. This is a science experiment for our lifetimes.

It's still good that they monitor and investigate stuff like this ahead of time. NASA, historically, has allowed for a ton of really cool practical advanced in technology to occur because of research they do on stuff like this, and I think it's entirely worth it to work on this kind of stuff even if we never have to actually shoot it down.

And yet, the article is about how they're doing things already to prepare for the next appropriate action.

In 150 years industrial society won't even exist anymore. If we're very lucky humans still might be around and the planet doesn't look like Venus, but I wouldn't bet on that

Afterwards we discover that Bennu housed an alien species, far more advanced but peaceful isolationists. Well, until we blew their home up.

NASA already stole some of their rocks.

160 years ago, NASA already stole some of their rocks. Now, they're back for revenge. Written by Google's Chat-GPT 14 and directed by the MPAA, Midjourney's Bruce Willis stars in the latest Amazon production: Bennu There Done That. Sponsored by McDonald's and available exclusively on Hulu.

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Honestly, will probably see some of this in my lifetime.

Unfortunately.