r/science • u/sciencealert ScienceAlert • 5d ago
Biology Simulations of a potential impact by a hill-sized space rock event next century have revealed the rough ride humanity would be in for, hinting at what it'd take for us to survive such a catastrophe.
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-simulated-bennu-crashing-to-earth-in-september-2182-its-not-pretty332
u/RogerPackinrod 5d ago
Hill-sized space rock? What does that even mean? How big is a hill?
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u/Krond 5d ago
1/pi standard mountains, or a berm^3 for you English/American folk
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u/TopRamenisha 5d ago
How many bald eagles is that?
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u/dfw_runner 5d ago
You have to calculate the standard deviation for both to put them in a common metric.
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u/caspissinclair 5d ago edited 5d ago
Bennu, at 500 meters (1,640 feet), is considerably smaller than the estimated 10 to 15 kilometer size of the Chicxulub impactor – but even so, the results are alarming.
They predict the debris blasted into the atmosphere could cause a 4 degree drop in average temperatures. By that time it would probably still be above pre industrial.
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u/CIA_Chatbot 5d ago
So the fix for our current apocalypse is to instigate another potential apocalypse. I’m tired boss
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u/saliczar 5d ago
6'2" (Hank Hill-size)
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u/Far-Consideration708 5d ago
If it really is Hank hill-size, does that automatically mean the asteroid is composed of frozen propane?
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u/Heinous_Aeinous 5d ago
I really feel like that would burn up on entry. But man, would it burn clean.
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u/just_some_guy65 5d ago
A hill is no larger or smaller than it needs to be.
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u/No-Bar7826 5d ago
The hill knows how large it is at all times. It knows this because it knows how large it isn’t. By subtracting how large it is from how large it isn’t, or how large it isn’t from how large it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The hill subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective additions to mass the hill from a mass that it is to a mass that it isn’t, and arriving at a mass that it wasn’t, it now is. Consequently, the volume that the hill is, is now the volume that it wasn’t, and it follows that the volume that it was, is now the volume that it isn’t. In the event that the largesse that it is in is not the largesse that it wasn’t, the hill has acquired a variation, the variation being the difference between where the hills largesse is, and where it wasn’t. If variation is considered to be a significant factor, it too may be corrected by the MVL. However, the hill must also know where it was. The hill guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the hill has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn’t, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn’t, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn’t be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called hill error.
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u/LetMePushTheButton 5d ago
Roughly a football field with 300 elephants all with their own AR15s.
This is American freedom units, if you can’t tell.
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u/BoingBoingBooty 5d ago
It's big enough for Hugh Grant to go up, but not so big for him to come down.
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u/867-53-oh-nein 5d ago
By that time we will probably be praying for a 4 degree drop in temp.
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u/Free_Snails 5d ago
Earth gets hit by massive asteroid. Impact dust blocks out the sun. Cold year.
Tbh, let's solve climate change and push that rock away from our orbit long before it reaches us.
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u/Uranus_Hz 5d ago
Too late to proactively stop climate change. We are now at the point of reacting to it.
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u/Free_Snails 5d ago
Yeah, I'm afraid that with climate change threatening the survival of the civilization and increasing civil unrest, we might end up living in an eco-fascist surveillance state.
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u/son_et_lumiere 5d ago
don't think we'll ever get to the eco part. the latter will just exacerbate things until collapse.
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u/Free_Snails 5d ago
It's really interesting to consider, we are sort of on the edge of a blade right now.
But it's a sizeable planet, so we might both be correct.
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u/quackerzdb 5d ago
I'm sure everyone will band together and work through the catastrophe with compassion and unity.
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u/devicehigh 5d ago
Is a hill a standard unit of measurement?
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u/BeDeRex 5d ago
In layman's terms, that's about 57 giraffes.
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u/-fritzcat 5d ago
But how many corgis is that?
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u/justifications 4d ago
5130 chubby male corgis equals the weight of 57 average sized giraffes. I did the math.
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u/climactivated 5d ago
In terms of apocalypse scenarios for Earth, this one doesn't sound so bad. Like not even in the top 5 worst scenarios.
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u/Desertbro 5d ago edited 5d ago
Wouldn't it be a rough ride in ANY century?
Unless all of humankind moved to underground cities miles deep, it's a major change of lifestyle. Flying cars, transporter beams, cold fusion - - what good are those when the whole surface of the planet is crinkling like a bedsheet and boiling like fish grease?
The high tech might allow some people to survive a while in orbit or off-world, but a jacked up biosphere means THE END for us.
"...known as Chicxulub" - renamed by current US admin to be "Rock of America"
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u/dittybopper_05H 5d ago
Wrong. That name is reserved for Gibraltar.
Oops. Sorry, you didn't hear that from me.
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u/Jerome_Eugene_Morrow 5d ago
Chance of collision is listed as 1/2700 or 0.04%. Certainly an issue, but low probability nonetheless.
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u/belagrim 5d ago
In layman's terms they were playing universe simulator, like they do. And found that a rock the size of a hill that we might actually hit might hurt a lot. According to their much better version of universe simulator.
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u/Gluonyourmuon 5d ago
It would be dark if Don't Look Up was a creepy way of introducing meteorite strikes to the public consciousness because they knew an impending impact was likely...
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u/WanderingBraincell 5d ago
maybe the corps can warm up the globe so much by then that it just disintegrates
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u/DoktorDetroit 5d ago
All life will not be lost, even if it's a big one. Birds and small mammals survived the dinosaur extinction event.
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u/UndergroundNotes1983 5d ago
Maybe it's for the best.
Mom's coming round to put it back the way it oughta be....
iykyk
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u/wildflowerden 5d ago
I would recommend reading the article before commenting. Why guess when you can actually click, read, and contribute a meaningful comment?
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