>almost undoubtedly the largest Oort Cloud object ever discovered- almost in dwarf planet territory! Not a dwarf planet.
Thus, "almost".
But big enough to be spherical. Or to eliminate multicellular life on Earth, if it hit us.
A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years
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Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years
#252I say we catch that sucker, tow it into our neck of the woods as a second moon, and use it as a space port. Are there a million problems with this proposal? Yes. But would it be totally rad to do this? Also yes.
Reminded me of the game Bungie made pre-Halo called Marathon, which mostly took place on a colony ship that was made out of one of Mar's moons (Deimos)
Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years
#253Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
The diameter of this asteroid is estimated to be ~160 km, which is 21.7 times less than Moon with d=3474 km. Assuming similar density, the mass of the new asteroid is 10000 less than Moon and it's unlikely to affect much.
Ah, ok, good to know! When I read "dwarf planet", I automatically assumed it to be bigger than (or at least comparable in size to) the moon, which is a mere sattelite of a small planet. Then again, even Pluto, which was considered for a long time to be an "actual" planet, is smaller than the moon...
Earth's moon is freakishly large by moon standards, as it turns out!
> At about one-quarter the diameter of Earth (comparable to the width of Australia), it [the Moon] is the largest natural satellite in the Solar System relative to the size of its planet, the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System overall, and is larger than any dwarf planet.
Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think seeing something world changingly large randomly smashing into our next door neighbor would leave me feeling something other than lucky. But sure if it’s gonna happen, let’s get the neighbors a pool! Just let me uh… change my shorts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker–Levy_9 An entire fragmented comet impacted Jupiter in 1994 > Over the next six days, 21 distinct impacts were observed, with the largest coming on July 18 at 07:33 UTC when fragment G struck Jupiter. This impact created a giant dark spot over 12,000 km (7,500 mi) across, and was estimated to have released an energy equivalent to 6,000,000 megatons of TNT (600 times the wo…
This is awesome. Thanks for sharing.
> Although the impacts took place on the side of Jupiter hidden from Earth, Galileo, then at a distance of 1.6 AU (240 million km; 150 million mi) from the planet, was able to see the impacts as they occurred.
We’re getting better at this stuff!
Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
What sort of propulsion mechanisms (even those that are currently physically plausible but entirely outside our technology, so, for example, solar sails or nuclear torchships, but not, say, warp drive) could possibly be used to achieve such a task?
Scott Manley had a recent video talking about the work involved in moving the Earth, that you might find interesting. Basically the most "plausible" approach might be to move the moon and use it to drag the Earth. Similarly the best way to move another large object might be to carefully move other objects small amounts to do precise gravity assists. https://youtu.be/5StYppuJ_lg
wouldn't that require a solution to the three body problem to make such precise gravity assists?
Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, since we’re just assuming we could meaningfully change it’s trajectory we might as well also assume we could slow it down!
Slowing it down would take way more energy than just nudging in a different direction. You might be better off trying to break it up into smaller pieces.
how would we aerobreak it in mars's atmosphere into a decaying orbit, so instead of slamming into mars, it breaks up and rains down on mars? What can we tell about the composition - a solid rock or icy rubble?
Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years
#258I say we catch that sucker, tow it into our neck of the woods as a second moon, and use it as a space port. Are there a million problems with this proposal? Yes. But would it be totally rad to do this? Also yes.
All aside, thanks for giving me big laugh :D
Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scott Manley had a recent video talking about the work involved in moving the Earth, that you might find interesting. Basically the most "plausible" approach might be to move the moon and use it to drag the Earth. Similarly the best way to move another large object might be to carefully move other objects small amounts to do precise gravity assists. https://youtu.be/5StYppuJ_lg
wouldn't that require a solution to the three body problem to make such precise gravity assists?
Only if the target was far and we did it in one shot. Otherwise you’d just measure the state of things and make corrections for your next maneuver, the way we do for trips outside Earth’s orbit today.
Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a two-body system it doesn’t matter what you do; gravity is a conservative force so conservation of energy demand that you leave the body’s SoI at the same speed you entered it (in the body’s frame of reference). You can lose speed or alter course relative to another body in a single encounter, and those changes can reduce speed in future encounters, but if you’re on an escape trajectory heading in you stay in one…
> In a two-body system it doesn’t matter what you do; Two-body systems do not exist in reality. Energy is also conserved in 3 body problems. When you utilize the slingshot effect, some of the energy of the orbit of the body you are swinging around orbiting is transfered to you. The transfer of this energy does not depend on the closeness of the sun, but rather on how deeply you descend into the gravity well of the ob…
Saturn's captured satellites might also be the result of incidental aerobraking or whatever you want to call smashing into a bunch of very tiny satellites during a close periapsis, no?