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via Texas A&M University
An artist's illustration of an asteroid flying near Earth.
By Mike Wall
Space.com
The dramatic space rock events of last week highlighted the need in many people's minds for a viable asteroid-deflection strategy, and one scientist thinks he has a good candidate — paint.
On Feb. 15, the 130-foot (40 meters) asteroid 2012 DA14 gave Earth a historically close shave, missing the planet by just 17,200 miles (27,000 kilometers). Hours earlier, a 55-foot (17 m) object exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, damaging thousands of buildings and injuring 1,200 people.
The asteroid encounters served as a reminder that Earth sits in the middle of a cosmic shooting gallery, scientists say, and that destructive impacts are inevitable in the future unless humanity takes action.
One form of action could involve dusting a threatening asteroid with a thin coat of paint. The paint would change the amount of sunlight reflected by the space rock, potentially nudging it away from Earth through the accumulated push provided by many thermal photons as they radiate from the asteroid's surface. (This force is called the Yarkovsky Effect, after the Russian engineer who first described it around the turn of the 20th century.) [Photos: Asteroids in Deep Space]
The scheme would use powdered paint, which the sun's rays would then cure into a smooth coating. The paint would probably have to be applied long before any potential impact — years or decades, perhaps — to give the Yarkovsky Effect enough time to make a difference.
"I have to admit the concept does sound strange, but the odds are very high that such a plan would be successful and would be relatively inexpensive," Dave Hyland, of Texas A&M University, said in a statement. "The science behind the theory is sound. We need to test it in space."
NASA is interested in Hyland's idea and has approached the researcher to discuss developing such a space test, Texas A&M officials said.
Hyland is not the only scientist who thinks paint could save Earth from a cataclysmic impact. Last year, an MIT graduate student proposed launching a spacecraft that would bombard a threatening asteroid with paint-filled pellets. The idea won the 2012 Move an Asteroid Technical Paper Competition, which was sponsored by the United Nations' Space Generation Advisory Council.
Whatever deflection strategies researchers devise, the first step toward safeguarding the Earth is to detect and map the orbits of potentially hazardous objects, Hyland said. One million or more asteroids are thought to lurk in near-Earth space, but just 9,600 of them have been discovered to date.
"The smaller ones like DA14 are not discovered as soon as others, and they could still cause a lot of damage should they hit Earth," Hyland said. "It is really important for our long-term survival that we concentrate much more effort discovering and tracking them, and developing as many useful technologies as possible for deflecting them."
Follow Space.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.
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Leave a Comment:
Who knew that taggers would save the earth?
To save the world just "paint the town red"?
Michael,
High Plains Drifter reference?
But seriously, Changing the albedo is a great solution if you have a couple of decades lead time. Could also be achieved by covering the asteroid in mylar film. Mylar would be less mass to move to the arteroids's orbit.
And what if their calculations are wrong and actually "caused" one to hit earth. Maybe we should just take our chances rather than take a chance on human error.
Another idea that works on a similar principle would be to erect a large solar sail on the asteroid. With that done the solar winds would gently push the asteroid into a new orbit. Using paint to change the reflectivity of the asteroid would work but would require us to know about the danger from the asteroid very far in advance. The solar sail should provide a greater push for the area since it would be relying on the pressure from solar winds, not simply the thermal photons reflecting off a painted surface.
Asteroids spin erratically, so attaching a solar sail without despinning it will be problematic. Solar sails are made of mylar, and as I stated above, bagging the asteroid in mylar film will move the object . It turns the sun facing side into a solar sail no matter the spin.
Here's a great example of where we need to evolve... AFTER the big rock explodes over our heads we start rushing around like the proverbial chickens sans heads.
There has been major impacts within recorded history... we can see the effects of catostrophic impacts from the distant past...
It can happen... I has happened... it's likely to happen again. So we need to act now.
It sometimes takes a big bang to wake people up. Personally, I've followed the subject closely for more than 30 yrs.
Maybe they could spray some graffitti on the 'roids so visiting alien gangs would know which humanoid gangs own the territory.
This is a form of kinetic nudging, too. Spraying on the paint changes the momentum and mass of the roid. But, a much more effective solution would be an action at a distance nudge, such as hitting it with a precisely steerable energy beam. This killer asteroid deflector beam would likely be mounted on the Moon.
This is such a stupid idea. pb in CA. They just need to send up a bunch of oil drillers up on some supped up space shuttles (probably 2 in case one crashed and some died) and then drill a hole to put in a nuclear device, and BLOW THAT S*IT UP!!! Just my own theory. It's mine, and nobody better use that idea ad make a movie or something. I'LL SUE YOU TO HIGH HEAVEN!!!
Painting an asteroid may be a fine solution when all Near Earth Objects and found and their orbits are charted, and it is determined that any threat is in the distant future, but what about objects that are found on course to strke the Earth with little time to act? We need to start looking now and chart all of them, all while putting in place a plan that will deal with short-term threats. 2012 DA14 was found about a year before the recent near miss. Painting it a year ago would have done nothing to keep it from hitting if it had been on a trajectory to hit.
AA
Well. If going to all the work involved to paint a big rock, why not do it right and push it into a new orbit, so we wont have to deal with it later. I doubt the paint would work at all. A colorful pipe dream.
Changing the course of a large mass hurtling through space physically is difficult, primarily because we have severe limitations on how much mass we can launch from the Earth. You can't stop a car with a wad of tissue.
On the other hand, because the distances and relative sizes of the objects involved, anything that could tilt the trajectory a few hundredths of a degree eventually leads to a complete miss given enough time. Paint is a good idea because it's not reliant on mass; we can launch a paint dispenser on a small rocket that would have most of its components adjusted for a longer space flight and interception.
Very unconventional. But I rather liked the space laser idea.
The YarkovskY Effect is a bit more involved than merely using radiation to deflect an asteroid's course, as a revolving asteroid acts differently from one that doesn't. Radiation also exerts such a small force that it indeed could take decades for any noticeable change to occur in the orbit. Of course, this won't work on asteroids and meteors that nobody detects before they enter our atmosphere. It's a long shot, but the effect actually does work.
Speeding up an asteroid or slowing it down works equally well, when it comes to avoiding collision with the Earth. However, keep in mind that the Yarkovsky Effect only effectively works on larger threatening astronomical bodies whose rotation is within certain limits, and even then only over a fairly large span of time. So if you calculate the Yarkovsky Effect compared to the effect of an equal mass impacting the surface of the threatening body in an inertial way (followed by the same span of time) within the allotted span of time before any collision with the Earth, especially IF that impacting inertial body also happens to be a nuclear warhead, I really think nuclear warheads will ALWAYS win out. In my (expert?) opinion, nuclear warheads (if only delivered in a MIRV way) will almost always win out over painting these bodies (black?), especially given that most of these space bodies are ALREADY 'near black' now. (Humma, humma?) - RC
(Please note that the Yarkovsky Effect is dependent upon the absorption (and reemission) of solar energy, and painting an asteroid white will only serve to attenuate the effect. While that potentially can alter the long term force of the effect upon any asteroid relative to what it would have been, few if any asteroids have a rotation relative to the Sun which is ideal and stable enough to be relied upon for any beneficial effect over that lengthy a period of time.) - RC
I personally think a solution with coverts the mass and energy of any threatening body to its own deflection is the most ideal, especially if that solution happens to be a nuclear device. You can easily double the energy of any solution by using this approach. This approach will basically enable us to use the mass and energy of any threatening body against itself, and equally important, any result can be very quickly assessed should any followup action be required. - RC
Would there be any way to use our nuclear waste for this (potential) problem?
We've got to deal with all the waste we have on earth eventually...
Obtaining super-accurate trajectories for asteroids requires a long-baseline observations, and the best idea I've seen is to use put up a few telescopes orbiting the sun at Earth-Mars radii. These will produce triangulations that give the earliest possible warning. The value of warnings is to evacuate areas where a Tunguska-size asteroid will crash. We still have thousands or millions of years (probably) before something large enough to cause a global catastrophe will come along, so I'm not concerned that we need asteroid deflection technology in the short term. But we do need early warnings, as illustrated by the Russian meteorite that came down over a city of 1,000,000 people. It could have been much, much worse had it exploded a second or two later than it did.
I'm certainly no scientist but I can visualize how much paint and time would be required to coat space at a radius of 1,528,620,000 miles per decade. Of course this would need to be a 360 degree radius in 360 degree direction assuming an asteroid could come from any direction(perhaps they only come through the swath that is the milkyway). I imagine also that this much paint would change the climate on earth perhaps sending us into an ice age killing everything on the planet or maybe it would just give us some really colorful sunsets!
DA14 travelled at 17,450 miles per hour
17,450 x 24 = 418,800 miles per day
418,800 x 365 = 152,862,000 miles per year
152,862,000 x 10 = 1,528,620,000 miles per decade
Granted the space shuttle flies about the same speed as did DA14 so it could only take 10 or 20 years to get to the right spot where the painting would start. But then the painting would have to create an orbit around the earth(circumference) of 9,599,733,600 miles which would take 64 years per orbit. Depending on how wide the stroke of of paint would be there would likely have to be hundreds or thousands of orbits to coat enough of space to paint an asteroid coming from any direction. If you could coat enough of space with 100 orbits then we could protect ourselves or begin the ice age in 640 years. All of this assumes that you could carry enough paint into space to do this in one trip and the space craft wasn't destroyed by an asteroid in the process of painting.
It's not hard to see what a preposterous idea this is... nothing more than brainstorming.
Maybe... but it's important we keep thinking "outside the box." You never know when someone's crazy, unworkable idea might trigger a feasible idea by someone else.
The plan is to send a spacecraft to rendezvous with and paint the surface of a specific threatening asteroid, not to "coat space," which doesn't make much sense.
So scientists would have to detect an asteroid 20 years (or more) from impact, launch a space ship loaded with paint and people(?) that would travel 10 years (or more) to a location in space that would intersect with the asteroid, then land on it and proceed to paint it while it is traveling at 17,000 miles per hour?
I'm pretty certain that is not the suggested plan or that it is any less ridiculous than coating space.
That's the correct statement right there.
The International Space Station is also travelling about 17,000 mph. You don't notice the speed if you're moving along with the object in space.
Earl Scheib, We will paint any Asteroid for $29000.95
Took a car to Earl Scheib once. The downward deflection in value was quite appreciable!
Yeah right we spend billions to spray coat an asteroid years in advance of it's impending collision--then along comes a small meteor--too small to deflect it--but big enough to throw up a lot of dust and coat the paint with a layer or white/grey and completely thwart those billions of dollars spent.
Plus this won't work with a comet which would just out-gas regardless of the coating and dust over anything we sprayed on it.
Foolish idea and it just won't work most of the time due to dust.
Guess these 'thinkers' never vacuumed a house ha they have no idea of what dust can do.
Fortunately interplanetary dust is extremely dispersed (far more so than in anyone's house); we already have a lot of spacecraft experience showing it's not a problem over the time span required for the asteroid mission, and the risk of a secondary collision is small. True it won't work with a comet, but it's not intended to; comets often come in from the outer solar system with little warning time and would require a different deflection method.
The best way to deflect an asteroid is to PREPARE AHEAD OF TIME a large body in space with enough mass and use nuclear engines to move it in a path to intersect the asteroid and go into orbit and slowly tug it away from it's path and trajectory towards an Earth collision.
We could put a body like this in orbit around the MOON where it's distance would keep it a constant distance and with a simple push to send it on it's way. In fact, this makes perfect sense as we can slingshot it around the Earth to speed it's trajectory toward the asteroid.
The United Nations should begin saving money to this end by slowly but surely building up enough mass in an object to make it effective on even GIANT 'ELE' event asteroids.
In fact, we could actually CAPTURE a smaller asteroid to be used as a DEFENDER against larger more dangerous asteroids.
Didn't think of that did you ?
Researchers have probably thought of just about everything, but even a "smaller asteroid" has a mass of thousands of tons versus an upper limit of about 100 tons for any spacecraft so far launched from Earth. So unfortunately the propulsion technology doesn't currently exist to do the things you suggest. We could make small deflections to asteroids, but not "capture" them. Maybe sometime in the future.
In fact we could even capture multiple asteroids of various sizes in separate and distinct orbits around the Moon, then mount Nuclear engines on each--or at least humongous hydrogen engines so that we could dislodge it from it's 'locked' orbit and slingshot it around the Earth (or even other planets) to rendezvous with the target asteroid. And we could send as asteroid of the proper size to take care of things (not one size fits all).
Basically, play the game of cosmic billiard balls to our own advantage--which is survival.
In further fact, we could even play the game like a real game of asteroids. Capture different sizes of asteroids into the Moon's orbit--then sling them around the Earth to COLLIDE with the incoming asteroid and blast it to smithereens with a combined 100,000+ mph impact speed which would basically do the same thing as what happens to a small asteroid like Tunguska which vaporizes 5 to 10 miles above the Earth.
And if we do it tens of millions of miles away from planet Earth then the chances of a sizeable asteroid impacting the Earth will be greatly reduced. Just one more of the many options to 'STORE' defenses against an incoming asteroid.
And probably even more effective would be an 'off-center' collision which would drastically change the path of the asteroid. Even more so that a gravity traction device.
Many say breaking up an asteroid into thousands of pieces can make things worse. But that's if you break it up when it's on a path toward Earth and already so close the larger pieces can't miss the Earth. But it you break it up tens of millions of miles away then gravity won't keep those pieces together and travel the same path because the SUN will heat them all differently , as well as the gravitational tug, and so their paths will diverge. Not converge.
Interesting idea that would work... if we had enough time to plan it out (i.e. 20 or so years). Problem with asteroids is not the ones we know about many years in advance, but the ones that... surprise! we just found it and it'll be here in a few months. Not enough time to use this method.
Asteroids that are on an impact trajectory should be considered cosmic gifts; they should be shepherded into high earth orbits and mined for resources, not destroyed or deflected. Most NEO orbits are not fully understood, so blindly changing them to avoid an impact might result in serious consequences later. Better to capture it, not shoot it back into the galactic pool table.
Perhaps someday. But as I noted above, the technology does not currently exist to "capture" asteroids with a mass of thousands of tons or more, so the best we can do for now is deflection.
Polluted water, polluted air, a ground so contaminated (soon) nothing will grow and now we want to save it?
Sure, just send some guys up with some Krylon paint cans in some 'Buck Rogers' space crafts to asteroids to paint them, then hope they still don't strike earth. lmao
I don't know how they can paint anything in 'space'.
Spraying painting right here on earth outside is a tough job..paint goes all over besides the object you're painting!
Mike, there is no wind in space. Just the pressure of light which is very weak but it is constant. That is the force that is co-opted by a light colored pigment. The hard part is getting the pigment to the body in question; once there, its application would be academic provided a technique is developed. Such a technique has yet to be demonstrated. I suspect that before long attempts will be made.
The singular difficulty and the greatest expense involved is the Earth's own gravity well. Getting out of it is simple in principle but hideously expensive in terms of fuel, hardware and money. That will not change.
Paint Ball billards in Space.
We need maglev launching system to reliably place large amounts of payloads into space. I propose on thousand mile track parallel SF to Denver. With 30G acceleration we could place astronauts in NEO, ISS supplies in NEO, nuclear waste on the Sun, and launch the mass gravitation tractor asteroid deflector robot ship... or even a paint ball! Target practice anyone?
We could create a inner solar system drag coefficient to degrade orbitals but this changes the synchronicity thus creating more intercept uncertainty, but could clear all the threats.
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The perfect scenerio. Get Elon Musk to fly up there and paint Tesla ads on the asteroids.
Nah. Because if it didn't work, and some guy wrote an article about it, Musk would just sue them for defamation.
I do have to wonder, though, if the added mass of the paint would counteract the tiny amount of photon thrust and cause the thing to come down faster...
There are small additional effects (such as the gravitational attraction between the asteroid and the spacecraft with the paint) that need to be considered, but keep in mind this process takes years, and there will be very precise tracking (made possible by having a spacecraft "on site" sending radio signals) to be sure the process is having the intended effect, and do something else if it isn't.