Earth gets hit by the exact same type of meteor that killed the dinosaurs

[BitVyper]

I didn't watch the video, but I don't put a lot of stock in Kurzgesagt, but we've got evidence of things just instantly dying thousands of miles away. I don't think there was a hundred years of total darkness, but there was probably at least a decade where we weren't getting sunlight on the surface. Lack of photosynthesis DID make a lot of plant species go extinct, and the ones that survived had better adapted life cycles. Remember also that plant seeds can stay dormant until conditions are right.

"Our ancestors" were not anything like us, and their survival isn't indicative of our ability to survive. The things that survived were things that were less impacted.

Something like the K/T event happening has a lot of unpredictable factors involved. We don't know what's going to end up in the atmosphere or what kind of aftereffects there will be, where earthquakes will happen or volcanoes will go off, or what effect other species dying will have on the whole food chain. It's going to look like Chrono Trigger's bad future for a long time though, and that's not good for anything bigger than a gopher.

[BitVyper]

The survival of some crocodile species is also a pretty good demonstration of how much blind luck is involved here. They just happened to have the exact right combination of adaptations and factors in their environments to make it through largely unchanged where all their cousins died. It's like being the brother with the iron neck getting put to the guillotine.

[bruceleegreyhulk]

Two words, roach overlords

[Nik Hasta]

In his book A Short History of Nearly Everthing Bill Bryson did a good write up of how an extinction class asteroid hitting the earth would go.

[Muadib]

The problem with saying "Nothing could survive that" is that we know quite a lot of things totally survived that. All life on Earth is descended from pre-meteor life forms on some level.

Sorry i should have specified that all humans would probably die and 75-90% of everything else. Life is pretty hardy and some life would probably make it. Rats, other small rodents, many insect species. But imo Humanity would be toast.

[Sharpandpointies]

Just popping in to note that 'hitting the asteroid with nukes', with regards to either trying to break it up (as noted, not happening) or altering the trajectory, isn't going to work.

We need to deliver the nukes to the asteroid, to start with. Missiles? Don't have the range. Sure, we could maybe launch ICBMs at the thing, targeted to hit it at their maximum range, which means they're hitting it...when it's too close to change anything and instead of a giant meteor hitting us, we have a giant irradiated meteor hitting us (not an improvement). Sending a shuttle to plant nukes on it, similar to movie-land? We don't have any shuttles that can A - reach it distant enough that any explosion on it will actually affect the trajectory of such a massive object sufficient to make it miss us; B - with enough fuel to get enough of a burn to actually match velocities with it; C - capable of carrying enough nukes that MIGHT alter its trajectory in any sufficient fashion even if we could reach it.

Hollywood often doesn't grasp this, so we get scenes like 'America fires nuclear missiles at an approaching object, and the nukes reach that object in seconds as it passes lunar orbit despite said missiles having neither the range, nor the guidance capabilities at that range, nor the velocity to actually travel at decent fractions of lightspeed' (The 4400 EDIT as I recall the nukes hit it somehow BEFORE it passed lunar orbit, and everyone saw the explosion as gigantic fireworks back on Earth, there was a whole lot wrong with that particular scene).

I'm down with the idea that human civilization is 'put a fork in it, we're done', and what's left is going to be primitive survivors eking out a miserable existence in some corner of the world. Or the like. Maybe someday we make a comeback.

Edit: Granted, there are going to be ****-tons of other issues like 'our reactors creating all kinds of pollution when they get destroyed, our oil rigs and such fouling the oceans on a level we can't even imagine right now, the toxic waste of our civilizations spilling out and messing up areas', etc.

[big_adventure]

Just to put in a counter vote, the same as I did in the other thread:

This being a potentially extinction-level event means that things like "reasonable budgets" go straight out the window.

Humans (NASA, ESA to name two) have proven the ability to, for a relative pittance, launch delicate things in a functional state very precisely an extremely long distance (recent Mars visits, certainly, all kinds of long range probes prior to those).

Here, assuming the detection range is far enough away, and then having "all of the money ever" as the budget, humans would be able to put a LOT of ordinance in position to deviate the path of the thing. No need to use existing ICBMs (which are, of course, not capable of this), just build solar-system-crossing rockets, things that we KNOW how to build already and have for decades, and load them up with a bunch of W88 and equivalent warheads, of which there are literally thousands. String them along the path and start deviating the thing bit-by-bit.

[Nik Hasta]

This being a potentially extinction-level event means that things like "reasonable budgets" go straight out the window.

There's a comment to be made here about the current climate crisis which kind of undercuts this somewhat.

[BitVyper]

There's no budget that's going to stop a K/T asteroid. This is a celestial event beyond human reckoning. Like I said before, the projections where NASA kind of shrugs their shoulders and says "maybe?" are modelled on drastically smaller rocks.

Elon Musk will say he can stop it with a cave sub and they'll give him a trillion dollars and he'll tweet about it.

[Sharpandpointies]

Just to put in a counter vote, the same as I did in the other thread:

This being a potentially extinction-level event means that things like "reasonable budgets" go straight out the window.

Humans (NASA, ESA to name two) have proven the ability to, for a relative pittance, launch delicate things in a functional state very precisely an extremely long distance (recent Mars visits, certainly, all kinds of long range probes prior to those).

Here, assuming the detection range is far enough away, and then having "all of the money ever" as the budget, humans would be able to put a LOT of ordinance in position to deviate the path of the thing. No need to use existing ICBMs (which are, of course, not capable of this), just build solar-system-crossing rockets, things that we KNOW how to build already and have for decades, and load them up with a bunch of W88 and equivalent warheads, of which there are literally thousands. String them along the path and start deviating the thing bit-by-bit.

All of this is dependent on a number of things.

1. How much time do we actually have?
2. Can we accurately place these rockets, in this case? We are not firing them at planets so that they fall into orbit and can easily be adjusted, we're trying to place them close enough on the projected route of this thing that their tiny nuclear explosions will actually affect it in actually meaningful way (which, in terms of space, the distances involved, the speeds at which everything is travelling, the time lag for control and observation, and such - barring suicidal volunteers with enough tech on the rockets themselves to be able to meaningfully calculate minute course corrections in real-time along with the actual control systems on the rockets to manage this, which is a whole other ball of issues - it all feels like something a tad unlikely to me).

If we have a couple years to consider this, great. Maybe - MAYBE - we can manage that (I'm rather iffy, but okay, given some years to work on it).

If we have six months, I don't think this will fly.

[Sharpandpointies]

There's a comment to be made here about the current climate crisis which kind of undercuts this somewhat.

There's that, as well. Committees, arguing, people who just don't believe obstructing, etc. By the time someone takes dictatorial control, we're that much closer to impact, with less time to get things together.

[Sharpandpointies]

Elon Musk will say he can stop it with a cave sub and they'll give him a trillion dollars and he'll tweet about it.

I feel you hit that one on the head.

[big_adventure]

There's a comment to be made here about the current climate crisis which kind of undercuts this somewhat.

Eh, that's drastically different. People currently in command of countries won't experience any change to their lives due to climate change.

This thread is talking about a specific "this will literally kill everyone, not just some poor people in low lying areas" event, and that's going to make those rich, powerful people move heaven and earth to do something about it.

All of this is dependent on a number of things.

1. How much time do we actually have?
2. Can we accurately place these rockets, in this case? We are not firing them at planets so that they fall into orbit and can easily be adjusted, we're trying to place them close enough on the projected route of this thing that their tiny nuclear explosions will actually affect it in actually meaningful way (which, in terms of space, the distances involved, the speeds at which everything is travelling, the time lag for control and observation, and such - barring suicidal volunteers with enough tech on the rockets themselves to be able to meaningfully calculate minute course corrections in real-time along with the actual control systems on the rockets to manage this, which is a whole other ball of issues - it all feels like something a tad unlikely to me).

If we have a couple years to consider this, great. Maybe - MAYBE - we can manage that (I'm rather iffy, but okay, given some years to work on it).

If we have six months, I don't think this will fly.

The time factor is definitely huge. I was operating under the idea that we have a couple of years at least - which we would at this time in human events. We can see pretty far and do some pretty solid calculations.

There's that, as well. Committees, arguing, people who just don't believe obstructing, etc. By the time someone takes dictatorial control, we're that much closer to impact, with less time to get things together.

I feel that overrates the impact that stuff will have, simply because the people those people respond to, the rich and powerful, aren't going to tolerate delays in such a case. Climate change is much easier to wait out for them, as most of them simply won't be affected at all by it while they are still alive.

[Sharpandpointies]

The time factor is definitely huge. I was operating under the idea that we have a couple of years at least - which we would at this time in human events. We can see pretty far and do some pretty solid calculations.

If we have years, in multiples, and can get everyone behind this, I will go with 'maybe possible, many question marks'.

If we have a year or less, I lean toward snowball, hell, that kind of thing. ^_^

Bitvyper also makes good points about NASA coughing uncomfortably and saying they MIGHT be able to pull this off with much smaller rocks.

Mileage may vary!

I feel that overrates the impact that stuff will have, simply because the people those people respond to, the rich and powerful, aren't going to tolerate delays in such a case. Climate change is much easier to wait out for them, as most of them simply won't be affected at all by it while they are still alive.

It's a good example, however, of how there's pretty much zero way we'll just instantly spring into action as a co-op.

We NEVER do that. It's legit CIS.

[Shellhead]

NASA is finally at least beginning to address this kind of potential threat:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-da...etary-defense/