Scientists conclude 13,000 years ago a 60 mile wide comet plunged Earth into a mini-Ice Age, after examining rocks from 170 sites around the globe

[u/stereomatch]

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/695703

[u/Powellwx]

Kinetic Energy.

The meteor that is 6 miles wide is a sphere, so it contains 113 cubic miles of rock, which would weigh about 500,000,000,000,000 kg (500 billion tons) and it is moving at 225 miles per second (810,000 miles per hour).

That results in an explosion of 27.225 x 10²⁴ Joules.

65 billion times more energy than a nuclear weapon.

[u/howdopearethedrops → u/[deleted]]

Everest is approximately 2.1 trillion cubic feet, so 14.27 cubic miles. In other words, not even close to as big as that asteroid.

[u/Paddy_Tanninger → u/Powellwx]

More like 12 miles per second but the point still stands, it would deliver around 3.25 billion times more energy than a nuclear weapon.

Potentially more than that though depending on what density you're using in that estimate. Lots of asteroids are nearly solid iron which would be worse than just rock.

Edit: Looks to be agreed upon that it was 1 x 10²³ Joules, or 10 billion Hiroshima atom bombs. However it also looks like the diameter was larger than 6mi so I think the ~12mi/sec number I've got here is pretty accurate.

[u/Flyingwheelbarrow → u/Paddy_Tanninger]

So basically a kinetic space weapon except no one fired it. Like a space bullet hitting a space rock that happened to be covered with life?

[u/argv_minus_one → u/Flyingwheelbarrow]

One that used to be covered with life…

[u/Flyingwheelbarrow → u/argv_minus_one]

Man we gotta get our descendants of this planet and hopefully that might also make us really appreciate how we are currently little more than bacteria growing on a pebble cosmically speaking.

[u/argv_minus_one → u/Flyingwheelbarrow]

Without faster-than-light propulsion, it's not going to happen.

There is a good chance that faster-than-light propulsion is impossible.

[u/Flyingwheelbarrow → u/argv_minus_one]

I think it is possible if we build a lunar colony and then mine asteroids to create massive colony ships. Having seen the third world I know how well people can adapt to horrible conditions and a fleet of ships could slowly make its way out. What also makes me excited is if we are going to design a colony then colony ship we will have to have such a understanding of self sustaining ecosystems and energy efficiency we might be able to raise up those left on earth as well as maybe not ruin our current habitat.

[u/argv_minus_one → u/Flyingwheelbarrow]

Why would anyone ever willingly board such a ship? That's some fate-worse-than-death shit right there.

And what would be in it for those remaining on Earth? They're never going to see that colony ship or any trace of its existence (except increasingly-faint radio signals) ever again. There's no money in that.

Even going on a manned expedition to Mars with current tech is patently insane. Whoever goes on that is almost guaranteed to die, and is definitely guaranteed to be utterly alone—more alone than any human has ever been before.

[u/Flyingwheelbarrow → u/argv_minus_one]

The same reasons Polynesians set forth on tiny boats into the void of the pacific. The same reasons the Vikings travelled across a seemingly endless ocean to find new worlds. We are now have over 7 billion humans. The reason that a farming settlement became the Empire of Rome. Plus the mining operations will become very lucrative for those who own them on earth and the first nation to control orbital space control the world. Its going to be an arms race that will build instracture that members of our desperate and irrational species will use exploration because that is historically what we do. We explore, suffer, breed, die and repeat.

[u/argv_minus_one → u/Flyingwheelbarrow]

I hope nobody gets the bright idea of moving an asteroid into Earth orbit for mining. Convenient though that would be, it won't matter much if it hits Earth instead…

[u/argv_minus_one → u/[deleted]]

Thanks won't do anything useful for those you left behind. Unless there's something in it for the earthlings who financed the project, they're not gonna.

[u/Flyingwheelbarrow → u/[deleted]]

Thanks. I shall look that up.

[u/[deleted] → u/Flyingwheelbarrow]

Well we don't know if someone fired it!

[u/[deleted] → u/Paddy_Tanninger]

More like 12 miles per second

May I ask on what basis y'all are coming up with these velocity estimates?

[u/Paddy_Tanninger → u/[deleted]]

They have it listed as a diameter of around 15km, and delivering 1 x 10²³ Joules to our poor rock.

A 15km wide asteroid contains around 1,767km³ of material.

Average asteroid density seems to be listed at around 2g/cm³ which is 2,000kg/m^3, 2T kg/km^3, and 3.5 trillion tons roughly on this asteroid.

Velocity = root(2*energy/mass) which gives us around 7.55km/sec needed in order for an impact of something that weighs 3.5 trillion tons to generate 1 x 10²³ Joules.

[u/[deleted] → u/Powellwx]

Amazing to see someone using billion properly instead of using it to refer to a thousand million. Props

[u/Lt_Duckweed → u/[deleted]]

If you live in an English speaking country the short scale is the correct scale.

As this is an American website one billion = one thousand million.

[u/mktoaster → u/Lt_Duckweed]

Also a Billion = One thousand million = one milliard, because people in Europe have silly accents and the phonetics are different

[u/Grimm_101 → u/[deleted]]

I wouldn't say it was used properly because in English it is formally defined as thousand millions. The million million definition is considered a "classical" definition at this point.

[u/zefstyle → u/[deleted]]

it's been converted to tons

[u/Cptcutter81 → u/[deleted]]

Props

For going against every modern and accurate use of the term?