Could people actually 'make' an asteroid collide with Earth?

Question

I just read that people can 'change the orbit' of an asteroid.

Is this true?

Answer 1

I think so,it is possible.

Answer 2

no they can not nor can they stop one from hitting us

Answer 3

In theory yes, there are possibilities for that. But they are very very complicated and expensive.

Even a small push for a small asteroid requires a lot of fuel. If you use the Space shuttle Main engines, you would need around 55 tons of fuel only for pushing the satellite by a 6 cm/s.

Now, you not only need to bring this technology on the asteroid, you also need to place it at the right spot - the asteroid may rotate and you can't control it's rotation.

This alone means even more effort as landing a human on the moon.

Answer 4

No,my dear girl.

Answer 5

It is theoretically possible to do this, even with current technology . If we were to create a system of rockets or explosions on the asteroid that proves a force to change it's direction. That direction could be guided to the Earth.

In fiction this was done during starship troopers. In reality there is small but developing commercial interest in guiding asteroids into a safe orbit to mine them, obviously not in the near future. The worth of some asteroids is measured in trillions of US dollars.

Answer 6

Believe it or not, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, if it had been 2 hours earlier or 2 hours later, then the dinosaurs would not have died.  And with the immense size of the solar system, and how small and slow the asteroids are in comparison, then it requires very little energy to alter an asteroid's course with relatively very little energy.  Meaning a small rocket on the rock, or even a small chemical explosive, let alone nuclear.  And with the right calculations, and right intercept time and location, then you can definitely alter an asteroids course and make it collide with another planet, or even prevent it from hitting one.

Answer 7

of course it possible.  Given enough time and energy, any large body can be moved.

But we don't quite have the tehcnology perfected yet.

Answer 8

The orbits are pretty stable and to change it requires a lot of energy. Not with present day technology....

Answer 9

No.  

I can't imagine who these "people" are that are able to, one would assume, travel deeply into space and somehow alter the course of an asteroid with some unknown technology.  Are you sure this wasn't a science fiction novel or a book referring to a movie with Bruce Willis?

Answer 10

I suppose its theoretically possible, read this article

http://www.unisci.com/stories/20022/0408...

Answer 11

in theory, it could happen, but the person would need acsess to a large number of nuclear weapons and a time span of several years. i'm sure that by then thay would be figured out.

Answer 12

no have a nice one

Answer 13

Chances are that if an asteroid on a collision course with Earth was discovered, we would have days or possibly months to do something about it (or - as often happens - we would only notice it after it just passed us).

Apart from the fact that nobody now has a rocket powerful enough to take astronauts up to reach an asteroid at a safe distance (the last moon rockets were all scrapped), you simply can't see the world getting their act together fast enough to agree what to do.

So the answer is - in Hollywood yes, all the time. In reality very unlikely.

Answer 14

IF we chose to develop the technology, then yes, we could.

In fact, we could do much more.  We could "park" an asteroid in orbit and mine it for metals and other materials.  Or we could break it into small chunks, put a camera on one end of each chunk and a small engine on the other end, and have a space-based weapon system that it would be impossible to defend against.

But we can't do it today, nor are we likely to be able to in the near future, unless somebody suddenly starts pouring a LOT more money into the NASA budget - or someone discovers gold while looking at a spectrograph of an asteroid.

We should try, though.  Mining the asteroids could end a lot of resource problems forever.  And damage the environment less than mining on Earth.  Plus being able to nudge a killer asteroid away would be a good thing, too.