Another very large asteroid on its way

[Sockz]

Originally posted by Bill Sherwood
Soliton or not, a free-standing wave in the cean cannot stand higher than 198 feet or 60.3 metres.

Where'd you get this from, Bill? Sounds pretty interesting.

[jimmythe7th]

A soliton wave does not disipate energy as it travels along, like any otehr normal wave

What is a soliton wave and why dosent it disipate energy?. Only reason I can think of is it dosent spread out like other impact created waves, which I find very hard to beleive. I know you know your stuff Bill not trying to have a go just dont understand.

[NISMOgemini]

Originally posted by Bill Sherwood
................., and completely destroy everything within about 5km of the beach..................

ahh thast good, im safe :D hahah

as asked earlyer, could it hit hard enuff to effect our orbit of the sun?

[Billzilla]

From this book - http://www.sfsite.com/07b/ice37.htm - Apart from the fairly wild storyline, it's interesting from a physics point of view.
But it's a good read anyway.

[Billzilla]

Originally posted by jimmythe7th
What is a soliton wave and why dosent it disipate energy?. Only reason I can think of is it dosent spread out like other impact created waves, which I find very hard to beleive. I know you know your stuff Bill not trying to have a go just dont understand.

Bit hard to find info on solitons in a hurry, but here's an example - http://www.ma.hw.ac.uk/solitons/press.html

[Billzilla]

Originally posted by NISMOgemini
ahh thast good, im safe :D hahah

as asked earlyer, could it hit hard enuff to effect our orbit of the sun?

No, at least not a significant amount.
The amount that it would affect the Earth would be far less than the effect that all the water & dust pumped into the atmosphere would.

[DSMAZDAGTR]

Now... If only we could harness some of that energy. We'd have enough power to last us until after the sun dies...

[Nick]

Bill but after reading that solitons, without loss of energy wouldn't it only really work on a canel type of affar where there are walls on each side traping the energy, wouldn't a solitons energy in the ocean disapate and expand as the wave form moved out?!

[Rollin]

Ive heard the new BA Fords are heavy shooting one of them at the commet should stop it in its tracks.

well i think gravity would pull the heavy bugger straight back down, so you end up with 2 supersonic 'asteroids' not just one!!

if you could shoot it hard enough though, it would just bust all the way through and splinter the asteroid... 'teh falcon can nevah break'

seroiusly, im interested about the soliton wave too - why can it only ever be 60.3m high??

and the consensus is that we would be f*cked for many years to come re debris in the air etc - 2002 'time machine' movie style, when they blow the moon up?

[Warpspeed]

Interesting info on solitons Bill.

There was an article a while back that suggested solitons might be thae cause of some unexplained losses of submarines in deep water.

Solitons are a single wave that travels beneath the surface, it can either be an up wave, or a down wave. A submarine hit by one of these solitons can suddenly and very rapidly change depth.

Unfortunately a down wave soliton can rapidly push a submarine below crush depth before the crew even realise what is happening.

These things can be caused by sudden seismic disturbances of the sea floor and are not visible on the surface, at least not in the very deep water where they originate.

[Billzilla]

Dunno Nick, but I agree that in the confines of a canal the wave would certainly last longer.
I only really know of solitons from the Icefire book, which explains a fiar bit about them.

Another soliton that's going to happen sooner or later is the one that will be made from about half a billion tonnes of rock falling into the water from the side of an island near Teneriffe. It'll be heading towards New York, and it'll put the damage that the 11-9-00 terrorists did to shame well and truly.

[Andrew Bolt]

A 20 km asteroid collision would release enough energy to boil one third of the water in the oceans. For reference, a 1 km meteor colliding with earth would release 301492 megatonnes of energy (or the equivalent of 1.5 million Hiroshima sized nuclear weapons).

As for disruption to earth's orbit, remember that the mass is directly related to the radius cubed. The earth weighs approximately 216,000,000,000 times more than a 2 km asteroid (just to keep the maths simple), so any impact will have a negligible effect on the earth's movements through space.

[Damlowet]

Originally posted by NISMOgemini
ahh thast good, im safe :D hahah

as asked earlyer, could it hit hard enuff to effect our orbit of the sun?

Although the implications concerns to life on the plant are quite real with a rock this size, on a size to size basis

Earth Rock
1,084,000,000,000 : 1

It'd be like 1cm3 of pebble hitting a rock 100m3.

No probs at all.

Way back in the "Begining" the moon actualy colided with the Earth which is why it's a little pear shaped.


Damo

[Andrew Bolt]

Originally posted by Damlowet
Way back in the "Begining" the moon actualy colided with the Earth which is why it's a little pear shaped.

It's one theory that was postulated in the 60's to explain the Pacific Ocean basin, as well as the moon actually breaking off the earth. Unfortunately, that theory doesn't hold much water now, pardon the pun.

Cheers Dave.

[jimmythe7th]

How do you get the posted by warpspeed bit into that little writing at top of quote.

Posted by Warpspeed

These things can be caused by sudden seismic disturbances of the sea floor and are not visible on the surface, at least not in the very deep water where they originate.

That type of wave is called a tsunami caused by plates moving in oceans floor like underwater earthquake creating a wave called a tsunami. Note tsuami's are usually called tidal waves this it totally incorrect.