Asteroid explosion over Indonesia

[ray245]

Telegraph

On 8 October, the rock crashed into the atmosphere above South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The blast was heard by monitoring stations 10,000 miles away, according to a report by scientists at the University of Western Ontario.

Scientists are concerned that it was not spotted by any telescopes, and that had it been larger it could have caused a disaster.

The asteroid, estimated to have been around 10 metres (30ft) across, hit the atmosphere at an estimated 45,000mph. The sudden deceleration caused it to heat up rapidly and explode with the force of 50,000 tons of TNT.

Luckily, due to the height of the explosion – estimated at between 15 and 20 km (nine to 12 miles) above sea level – no damage was caused on the ground.

However, if the object had been slightly larger – 20 to 30 metres (60 to 90ft) across – it could easily have caused extensive damage and loss of life, say researchers.

Very few objects smaller than 100 meters (300ft) across have been spotted and catalogued by astronomers.

Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, warned that it was inevitable that minor asteroids would go unnoticed. He said: "If you want to find the smallest objects you have to build more, larger telescopes.

"A survey that finds all of the 20-metre objects will cost probably multiple billions of dollars."

The fireball was spotted by locals in Indonesia, and a YouTube video taken that day "appears to show a large dust cloud consistent with a bright, daylight fireball", according to the Ontario researchers.

An asteroid or comet fragment around 60 meters across is believed to have been behind the Tunguska Event, a powerful explosion that took place over Russia in 1908. The blast has been estimated at equivalent to 10-15 million tons of TNT – enough to destroy a large city.

The White House is to develop a policy on the space object impact threat by October next year.

That's rather surprising.

[weemadando]

In Australia when this hit the news we had people talking about how it was the Large Hadron Collider pulling Asteroids towards Earth, how science must be wrong about evolution because we couldn't spot a 10m asteroid and generally every other piece of anti-science bullshit you can imagine.

It'd be hilarious if people didn't actually believe what they were saying.

[Duckie]

The speed, if correct, is surprisingly low- it could have easily been thousands or tens of thousands of mph faster. Apparantly, according to a University of Arizona asteroid impact calculator site, such an impact occurs on the earth every 30 years, so it's not too rare that one would occur in an inhabited area like Indonesia.

[The Romulan Republic]

Some quotes from the article that stand out for me.

Scientists are concerned that it was not spotted by any telescopes, and that had it been larger it could have caused a disaster.

No, really?

However, if the object had been slightly larger – 20 to 30 metres (60 to 90ft) across – it could easily have caused extensive damage and loss of life, say researchers.

I'd like to think this could shake people out of their complacency and get them to stop saying space research is a waste of money, but I doubt that will be the case.

Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, warned that it was inevitable that minor asteroids would go unnoticed. He said: "If you want to find the smallest objects you have to build more, larger telescopes.

"A survey that finds all of the 20-metre objects will cost probably multiple billions of dollars."

Of course we'll probably wait until one makes it through the atmosphere and kills a bunch of people before actually doing anything.

The White House is to develop a policy on the space object impact threat by October next year.

A policy that will most likely avoid giving addequate, if any, funding to finding these things.

[FSTargetDrone]

In Australia when this hit the news we had people talking about how it was the Large Hadron Collider pulling Asteroids towards Earth, how science must be wrong about evolution because we couldn't spot a 10m asteroid and generally every other piece of anti-science bullshit you can imagine.

It'd be hilarious if people didn't actually believe what they were saying.

I find it amazing that people who could possess such ignorance have even a casual awareness that the LHC even exists. To them, I can only imagine that it's just sort of a vague impression of Some Big Science-y Thing out there.

[Napoleon the Clown]

We have meteoroids tearing themselves apart in the atmosphere all the fucking time. Yeah, this was a particularly big one, I'll admit. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=9865

United States Department of Defense and Department of Energy satellites scanning the Earth for evidence of nuclear explosions over the last eight years detected nearly 300 optical flashes caused by small asteroids (one to 10 metres in size) exploding in the upper atmosphere. This provided Brown and his research team with a new estimate of the flux of near-Earth objects colliding with the Earth.

Can we stop panicking now? Rocks explode in the upper atmosphere on an absurdly regular basis. This one just happened to do it above a place with a big enough population to make the news.

[The Romulan Republic]

We have meteoroids tearing themselves apart in the atmosphere all the fucking time. Yeah, this was a particularly big one, I'll admit. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=9865

United States Department of Defense and Department of Energy satellites scanning the Earth for evidence of nuclear explosions over the last eight years detected nearly 300 optical flashes caused by small asteroids (one to 10 metres in size) exploding in the upper atmosphere. This provided Brown and his research team with a new estimate of the flux of near-Earth objects colliding with the Earth.

Can we stop panicking now? Rocks explode in the upper atmosphere on an absurdly regular basis. This one just happened to do it above a place with a big enough population to make the news.

I would say the routine nature of such things is more cause for alarm. Yes, most of them are too small to do any damage, but its really just a matter of luck that we haven't had a Tunguska-like event over a heavily populated area.

[Sarevok]

Dumb question.....

Smaller meter sized asteroid seem to be the most common. Hundreds burn up or land somewhere without causing damage. What if one of them went for a developed area and we had short notice due to the objects small size ? Can existing surface to air missiles or ABM capability do something to deflect or destroy a meteor heading for a vital city or facility ?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Dumb question.....

Smaller meter sized asteroid seem to be the most common. Hundreds burn up or land somewhere without causing damage. What if one of them went for a developed area and we had short notice due to the objects small size ? Can existing surface to air missiles or ABM capability do something to deflect or destroy a meteor heading for a vital city or facility ?

45,000 mph is several times faster than modern icbm's. Hitting something the size of a television going that fast is impossible. Plus, destroying an asteroid doesn't stop that energy, it just spreads out the impact over a longer area.

[Sea Skimmer]

We can hit something going that fast; speed is not the problem on its own, especially with targets much much larger in diameter then ICBM warheads, which are less then 1 meter across. Having enough warning time is the trick, and since no one has major weapons deployed in space a ground launched weapon would need relatively precise positioning to have any effect. Typical SAMs are mostly irrelevant as even the ‘heavy’ ones only have a ceiling of 80-90,000 feet and reaction times are not good enough. A SAM battery might work if the asteroid is going to land right on top of it, but even in the Cold War such batteries covered only a tiny little portion of the earths surface, and most of that was in the USSR alone.

The ideal weapon solution is a space based laser linked to a much more effective early warning system. A laser engaging an asteroid still hundreds of thousands of miles away could simply push it off course by vaporizing a small portion of it. Even if full deflection is impossible we could at least hope to pus the asteroid onto a trajectory which will be certain to cause it to explode without damage in the upper atmosphere. When the laser wasn’t busy doing this, it could destroy human made space debris.

[The Romulan Republic]

We can hit something going that fast; speed is not the problem on its own, especially with targets much much larger in diameter then ICBM warheads, which are less then 1 meter across. Having enough warning time is the trick, and since no one has major weapons deployed in space a ground launched weapon would need relatively precise positioning to have any effect. Typical SAMs are mostly irrelevant as even the ‘heavy’ ones only have a ceiling of 80-90,000 feet and reaction times are not good enough. A SAM battery might work if the asteroid is going to land right on top of it, but even in the Cold War such batteries covered only a tiny little portion of the earths surface, and most of that was in the USSR alone.

The ideal weapon solution is a space based laser linked to a much more effective early warning system. A laser engaging an asteroid still hundreds of thousands of miles away could simply push it off course by vaporizing a small portion of it. Even if full deflection is impossible we could at least hope to pus the asteroid onto a trajectory which will be certain to cause it to explode without damage in the upper atmosphere. When the laser wasn’t busy doing this, it could destroy human made space debris.

Wouldn't that violate certain weapons treaties? I'm not saying its a bad idea, but I can certainly understand the fear that a big laser is orbit could be as easily pointed at the Earth as into space.

[Sea Skimmer]

Nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction are banned from space, including basing on the moon and other planets. Nothing else is, nations simply hold back because such weapons are too expensive and limited to be worth starting an arms race over. For example until very recently solid state lasers could not generate useful power levels as weapons. That meant that a space based laser would have to be chemically fueled, which would place a very low limit on the number of shots it could fire, as well as making it breakdown prone. Obviously this isn’t that grand a thing to have when it would cost a couple billion apiece. With solid state lasers we could orbit a weapon powered by a nuclear reactor that could essentially provide infinite firepower. This technology is only now maturing, what nations will chose to do with it is yet to be seen.

Nuclear reactors BTW have already been orbited dozens of times by the USSR to power radar reconnaissance satellites. One of them even crashed into northern Canada in the 1970s after failing to achieve a high parking orbit after the end of its useful life.

So far the heaviest weapon known to have been placed in space was a 23mm cannon mounted on the Soviet Salyut 3 space station. It was successfully test fired against several old satellites and special targets.

US, Chinese and Russian ground based lasers meanwhile have already demonstrated that they can destroy satellites back in the 1980s, so its kind of dubious that introducing laser satellites into orbit would actually matter. Sure they could shoot at ground targets, but they’d be absurdly easy to destroy themselves. A laser that rolls out of a bunker on earth is a rather harder target then a spacecraft to kill.

[darthdavid]

Also, if the anti-nuclear weenies prove to be too much of an obstacle couldn't such a laser be trickle charged by solar cells?

[CaptainChewbacca]

It is interesting to note that because the various international space treaties only prohibit the deployment of nuclear and ABM weaponry in space, there is a pistol in a lockbox on the ISS in case of emergencies. Its in a lockbox on the Soyuz, but all American astronauts are trained to use it.

[Sea Skimmer]

All the Soviet and Russian spacecraft have had pistols, or in some cases hunting rifles as well on board. It’s mainly because as the Russian capsules parachute back to land the crews could potentially be attacked by wolves or other creatures, or need to hunt for food. A couple early Soviet spaceflights had locator beacon problem and took a couple days to locate so this was seen as an important survival tool. Russian wolves are by all accounts nasty unfearful things.