re, #4.
Odds are, something will impact. We have no way of predicting what the shot pattern would be. It's all very heroic and macho to talk about nuking something, but you'd have better control with a relative small kinetic impactor or a motor that makes a softish landing nudging the entire thing out of the way.
It's one thing to catch a bullet with your teeth. It is a completely different one to catch a load of buckshot with your teeth.
Completely agree with you on this. If identified early enough in the process, a small nudge when it's halfway across the solar system will deflect it away from the earth. Unless Bruce Willis and his rocket team isn't available to destroy it just before it hits the earth's atmosphere (I know, bad movie, but strangely entertaining.
)
Honestly, if this event would happen in the next decade, I think we'd be better off making peace with the respective deity of our choice rather than planning to survive the impact. This type of event falls into my "Very Low Probability, Devastating effects, worldwide change, little that I can do about it" category.
Previous Topic
Index
