A stupid astronomy question
I have a rather stupid question regarding astronomy.
In theory, is it possible to divert the trajectory of a very small comet rich in water ice by using controlled nuclear detonations, and have it hit some unpopulated place on Earth, to create a drinking water lake?
Similarly, is it possible to do the same with a tiny asteroid, but this time to slightly cool down the Earth via the dust that would be ejected into the atmosphere, and, as a consequence, reduce the global warming?
The process is called impact winter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_winter
Is it possible to artificially create a mini impact winter that could actually be beneficial?
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Astronomy actually has little to do with weather-control.
Anything is possible in theory but does not always reflect reality.
Controlling the weather has more to do with thickening/thinning of the atmosphere.
The thicker the atmosphere the warmer it will get more easily.
The thinner the atmosphere the colder it becomes more easily.
Also, the more body/bodies of water surrounding any particular geography, the less extreme the temperatures will change in one day, due to the fact that large bodies of water act as somewhat of an insulator to keep temperatures from fluctuating wildly. I have lived in the coldest parts of both South Dakota and Minnesota, and I can tell you from experience, for an absolute fact, that it can get much colder (and also suddenly hotter), much more quickly there than it ever gets in Alaska. Talking temperatures like -60°F and being able to fluctuate over 100° worth of variance within the same day (this is due to the lack of surrounding bodies of water that must be cooled/heated first before the atmospheric-temperatures will change in any significant amount).
Thickness of atmosphere has more to do with temperature since you can go up to the top of a mountain, despite getting closer towards the sun, and yet feel colder than you would at the sea. Setting up several sets of large microwave-like devices without doors aimed at the thickest parts of the atmosphere can make the area/region very hot. Cooling an area is not something that I have put much thought into so you will have to wait for some other day after I have done enough research/field-testing to figure that out.
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MissAlgernon
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In theory, is it possible to divert the trajectory of a very small comet rich in water ice by using controlled nuclear detonations, and have it hit some unpopulated place on Earth, to create a drinking water lake?
No. Heat sublimes water into vapour. And in general, comet chemicals start chemical reactions in the atmosphere. A comet entering into the atmosphere would have the same effect as a huge bomb. A small comet was probably responsible for the Tunguska disaster. What would happen with a large one is probably beyond our worst nightmares.
The process is called impact winter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_winter
Is it possible to artificially create a mini impact winter that could actually be beneficial?
This is possible but the effect doesn't last long. Plus, such a winter is global, which means that crops are killed and people starve to death. It isn't a slight cooling at all, it's always extremely brutal. And asteroids very often start breaking before they enter into the atmosphere because of gravitation, which means plenty of smaller asteroids landing everywhere and killing all living beings around. Like the multiple Shoemaker-Levy 9 "impacts" on Jupiter.
Slowing down global warming with human-made carefully chosen chemicals released into the atmosphere would work fine on long term as long as chemicals are released, without the risk of killing millions of people in the process. And not to say, the required budget (building factories) is very far from being as large as anything requiring space technology.
In theory, is it possible to divert the trajectory of a very small comet rich in water ice by using controlled nuclear detonations, and have it hit some unpopulated place on Earth, to create a drinking water lake?
No. Heat sublimes water into vapour. And in general, comet chemicals start chemical reactions in the atmosphere. A comet entering into the atmosphere would have the same effect as a huge bomb. A small comet was probably responsible for the Tunguska disaster. What would happen with a large one is probably beyond our worst nightmares.
The process is called impact winter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_winter
Is it possible to artificially create a mini impact winter that could actually be beneficial?
This is possible but the effect doesn't last long. Plus, such a winter is global, which means that crops are killed and people starve to death. It isn't a slight cooling at all, it's always extremely brutal. And asteroids very often start breaking before they enter into the atmosphere because of gravitation, which means plenty of smaller asteroids landing everywhere and killing all living beings around. Like the multiple Shoemaker-Levy 9 "impacts" on Jupiter.
Slowing down global warming with human-made carefully chosen chemicals released into the atmosphere would work fine on long term as long as chemicals are released, without the risk of killing millions of people in the process. And not to say, the required budget (building factories) is very far from being as large as anything requiring space technology.
Would it be possible to slow down the small comet during the entry? Say, using some sort of highly directed strikes from the ground?
And as for the asteroid question - why not use very small asteroids, which would only cause marginal temperature and sunlight reduction? Couldn't it actually improve the crop yield if done right, if it counteracts the droughts caused by the global warming? If it's small enough, why would it produce any damage?
Also, could very small asteroids (which would disintegrate in the upper layers of the atmosphere) which are rich in hydrogen be diverted, and made to react with the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to reduce it?
You could in principle divert a small comet rich in water, but it would create water vapor in the atmosphere, not a pond. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. And it would take so much energy in the process of building a spaceship to do this that it's not worth it. We don't need more water. Also, just setting off bombs to send dust into the air would do the same thing as diverting a comet or other body, also not worth it.
Or we could just stop buying cars and having everything made and shipped from China.
MissAlgernon
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You can't slow an asteroid down (it would be considerably easier to slightly change its trajectory, although risky for the Earth if it's the initial target). Technically, I don't really see how, and even if it were possible, any force applied on it may make it break.
You don't get marginal temperature reductions. Only radical and brutal ones. Like, crops freeze at the tropics. Temperatures aren't regular when the atmosphere is modified, they spike and crash. Plus, the budget would be incredibly high for such a risky technology and a terribly ineffective result. It would be a worldwide economic and humanitarian crisis. Maybe even the end of the civilization as we know it.
As for reducing atmospheric CO2 in the atmosphere this way... The chemical reaction would be cataclysmic, to say the least. We don't need extra hydrogen. However, who knows, in a more or less distant future, extra CO2 may be absorbed by genetically engineered plants or devices to make hydrocarbons. I have no idea of the profitability of such a technology though...
You don't get marginal temperature reductions. Only radical and brutal ones. Like, crops freeze at the tropics. Temperatures aren't regular when the atmosphere is modified, they spike and crash. Plus, the budget would be incredibly high for such a risky technology and a terribly ineffective result. It would be a worldwide economic and humanitarian crisis. Maybe even the end of the civilization as we know it.
As for reducing atmospheric CO2 in the atmosphere this way... The chemical reaction would be cataclysmic, to say the least. We don't need extra hydrogen. However, who knows, in a more or less distant future, extra CO2 may be absorbed by genetically engineered plants or devices to make hydrocarbons. I have no idea of the profitability of such a technology though...
But what if the asteroid in question is very small? Why would it then cause a huge change in temperatures? Especially if it's broken down? Isn't there a relationship between temperature reduction and asteroid size? I doubt a very tiny asteroid (or its even smaller parts) lead to the same kind of temperature reduction as a huge asteroid which causes a full blown catastrophic impact winter. Why would a very, very tiny asteroid impact have catastrophic effects?
And as for the hydrogen, I'm referring to the Sabatier reaction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
It could occur when hydrogen-rich rocks enter the atmosphere. Granted, it still produces greenhouse gases, but a part of them could be condensed and aren't as harmful (such as water which is produced during this reaction).
As for the comet part - could some sort of parachutes be used to make small fragments of a comet come down to Earth relatively slowly? I'm talking about very small fragments, which could be torn off a comet via a directed nuclear blast.
MissAlgernon
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Really, I think you and I don't have the same idea of "slow". Yours is just unknown by nature. Same with temperature variations. You don't slow down a comet like a rocket, and the atmosphere doesn't know very progressive changes in temperature.
You want an idea of what "slow" could be ? The tiny impacts on the International Space Station. Tiny, "slow", but potentially deadly.
And why such an expensive solution ?
Or we could just stop buying cars and having everything made and shipped from China.
This is supposed to be a discussion more in the realm of science fiction

We obviously don't have the technology to do any of this cheaply yet (but we likely will in the future). And these kind of things are more useful for getting resources (such as water) for space colonies.
MissAlgernon
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You'd prefer getting water in the outer solar system. Even landing on an asteroid is extremely difficult. The smaller the body is, the more difficult it is to control landing. It's even hard to make something land safely on Mars... Doing the same with an asteroid or a comet is "miraculous". And comets and chondrites are quite brittle, so any try to manipulate them might end very badly.
Even in a very distant future, I don't believe in exploitation of asteroids as a sustainable and profitable technology. Exploitation of local resources on a planet or satellite would make much more sense, both for the economy and safety.
You want an idea of what "slow" could be ? The tiny impacts on the International Space Station. Tiny, "slow", but potentially deadly.
And why such an expensive solution ?
Let's deal with the asteroid part and the comet part of the thread separately.
1) The comet argument:
To what extent can a fragment of a comet be potentially slowed down? I'm talking about a fragment which would be torn off using a nuclear blast.
Why can't the entry velocity be made to be very low (ex: using solar sails, high specific impulse engines, such as the VASIMIR, etc.)? Why can't the already slowly entering comet be fired at with projectiles which would attach some kind of parachutes to it?
The ultimate goal is to get a huge amount of drinking water where it's very hard to access. (A space colony, or even some places on Earth if technologies for this become cost effective with tome.)
2) The asteroid part:
Same as for the comet. Also, why would a very, very tiny asteroid which would largely burn up in the atmosphere produce some kind of a catastrophe? The Earth is routinely hit with pretty large celestrial bodies (most of which just burn up in the atmosphere), but there's no cataclism or mass extinction. The goal is to use a very tiny asteroid to produce a marginal, yet beneficial reduction in the global temperatures, for the goals such as increasing the crop yield (by reducing droughts), or slowing down the climate change.
I think that you and I don't have the same notion of what an asteroid is.

Last edited by somebody300 on 23 May 2016, 4:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Even in a very distant future, I don't believe in exploitation of asteroids as a sustainable and profitable technology. Exploitation of local resources on a planet or satellite would make much more sense, both for the economy and safety.
Well, Rosetta successfully landed on a comet not so long time ago.
Also, asteroid mining is considered to be very profitable. So profitable that some laws got approved by the Obama administration not so long time ago to encourage private firms to mine asteroids. They contain billions upon billions of dollars worth of precious metals. There are even space mining lawyers nowadays.
Mining the Sky is a good book which explores the financial prospects of asteroid mining.
MissAlgernon
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If you attach something to a comet, which is travelling at extremely high speed, to change its speed, the comet is going to break. You'd need an extremely solid and dense body to resist to such a treatment - a metallic asteroid, not a comet or a carbonaceous chondrite.
And even then, its speed can't be slowed down enough to not hurt the Earth. Very tiny asteroids are reduced to dust when they enter the atmosphere. Anything larger impacts the Earth or explodes in the atmosphere, very often after having been reduced to pieces. You can't make them land safely, because their speed is considerably higher than someone falling with a parachute. And the comets and asteroids that are responsible for natural disasters are much tinier than ones that have any kind of influence on atmospheric temperatures. Yes, even a very tiny comet can do that, because of chemical reactions in the atmosphere. It's a bomb. Asteroids are much more chemically inert, in comparison.
Rosetta had problems landing. And where is that profitable to exploit asteroids ? Dreams aren't reality. Right now, these are just as much absurd (and nuts) as companies selling building lots on the Moon. We hear about exploitation of Helium-3 on the moon for decades. We can't even afford travelling to the Moon because it isn't profitable. Even that isn't currently profitable, but it will be in the future, but trust me, it will be considerably more profitable to exploit the Moon than any tiny celestial body. Because the Moon is stable, and close to Earth. It's as simple as that. Science-fiction books and even serious conferences predict a lot of things for the future. A lot of them never happened. In the 1950s, even scientists themselves thought that in the year 2000, there would be flying cars, human-like robots and people travelling to Mars for vacation. That's the Jetsons, not something realistic. Even for the economy, and especially for the economy.
And even then, its speed can't be slowed down enough to not hurt the Earth. Very tiny asteroids are reduced to dust when they enter the atmosphere. Anything larger impacts the Earth or explodes in the atmosphere, very often after having been reduced to pieces. You can't make them land safely, because their speed is considerably higher than someone falling with a parachute. And the comets and asteroids that are responsible for natural disasters are much tinier than ones that have any kind of influence on atmospheric temperatures. Yes, even a very tiny comet can do that, because of chemical reactions in the atmosphere. It's a bomb. Asteroids are much more chemically inert, in comparison.
Rosetta had problems landing. And where is that profitable to exploit asteroids ? Dreams aren't reality. Right now, these are just as much absurd (and nuts) as companies selling building lots on the Moon. We hear about exploitation of Helium-3 on the moon for decades. We can't even afford travelling to the Moon because it isn't profitable. Even that isn't currently profitable, but it will be in the future, but trust me, it will be considerably more profitable to exploit the Moon than any tiny celestial body. Because the Moon is stable, and close to Earth. It's as simple as that. Science-fiction books and even serious conferences predict a lot of things for the future. A lot of them never happened. In the 1950s, even scientists themselves thought that in the year 2000, there would be flying cars, human-like robots and people travelling to Mars for vacation. That's the Jetsons, not something realistic. Even for the economy, and especially for the economy.
What if shields are used instead, which would initially have the same velocity and flight direction as the comet piece once they touch it? Then, they could gradually reduce the comet velocity by producing thrust in the opposite direction of the comet.
Here's an illustration (sorry for my poor Ms Paint skills):

MissAlgernon
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Even in a very distant future, I don't believe in exploitation of asteroids as a sustainable and profitable technology. Exploitation of local resources on a planet or satellite would make much more sense, both for the economy and safety.
Well, Rosetta successfully landed on a comet not so long time ago.
Also, asteroid mining is considered to be very profitable. So profitable that some laws got approved by the Obama administration not so long time ago to encourage private firms to mine asteroids. They contain billions upon billions of dollars worth of precious metals. There are even space mining lawyers nowadays.
Mining the Sky is a good book which explores the financial prospects of asteroid mining.
On top of what Miss Algernon said: these visions of future asteroid mining (as far as I know) dont usually involve what your talking about: capturing a whole darn iron-nickel asteroid the size of Manhatten, and then somehow landing it gently on the earth.
What is usually envisioned is strip mining the asteroid right there in space, dismantling it (ingot by ingot), and sending the pig iron on space freighters back to earth ( or to heck with the Earth- just using the material to build Gerard O'Neil type space cities that will orbit at the Lagrange points around the earth and other planets-exploiting space resources to colonize space- as discussed O'Neil's book "the High Frontier").
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