Comments on: NASA upgrades software for monitoring potentially dangerous asteroids https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/nasa-upgrades-software-for-monitoring-potentially-dangerous-asteroids/ Thu, 09 Dec 2021 05:19:39 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Jeff Wright https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/nasa-upgrades-software-for-monitoring-potentially-dangerous-asteroids/#comment-1253290 Thu, 09 Dec 2021 05:19:39 +0000 https://behindtheblack.com/?p=81077#comment-1253290 Monitoring how close they come to each other is important-a grazing strike demands recalculation.

]]> By: John hare https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/nasa-upgrades-software-for-monitoring-potentially-dangerous-asteroids/#comment-1252962 Wed, 08 Dec 2021 17:52:12 +0000 https://behindtheblack.com/?p=81077#comment-1252962 One of the possibilities opened up is using one small asteroid to impact a larger one that’s in a dangerous orbit. Changing a kiloton unit takes far less human supplied energy than that of a megaton unit. Many of the closing velocities of different asteroids are in the 10+ km/sec range.

The key is first finding the potential impactor. Then finding much smaller units that can be nudged to intercept the potential impactor. 10 m/sec change is several hundred km/day of difference in orbit.

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