Could an asteroid belt have an atmosphere?
Answer and Explanation: The asteroids in the asteroid belt are too small to retain an atmosphere and the asteroid belt itself is best described as open space and therefore does not have an atmosphere.
The current life conditions on asteroids are far from comfortable. For example, the asteroids do not have any atmosphere and there are deadly space radiation and meteor bombardments. Future humans living on asteroids must be more comfortable for humans to explore and properly exploit these distant places.
As mentioned in NotAstronaut's answer, objects smaller than 25 meters will typically burn up in the atmosphere. One can very easily see why this should be the case using Newton's impact depth formula.
Finding Meteorites
Most space rocks smaller than a football field will break apart in Earth's atmosphere. Traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour, the object disintegrates as pressure exceeds the strength of the object, resulting a bright flare.
While meteors streak across the sky thousands of times a year, Earthgrazing meteoroids only nick our atmosphere a few times annually. To bounce off the atmosphere, they need to approach it at a shallow angle and briefly enter it before shooting off again, Universe Today explained.
What would it take to stop an asteroid? In order to stop an asteroid of this size in less than six months, the researchers think that we would have to use nuclear devices to "disassemble" the object. And this is apparently doable with less than 10 percent of the world's current nuclear arsenal.
The mission's one-way trip confirmed NASA can successfully navigate a spacecraft to intentionally collide with an asteroid to deflect it, a technique known as kinetic impact.
Using high-fidelity simulations, scientists reported in a study published earlier this month that a stealthy asteroid as long as 330 feet could be annihilated by a one-megaton nuclear device, with 99.9 percent of its mass being blasted out of Earth's way, if the asteroid is attacked at least two months before impact.
“So far we have found two large near-Earth asteroids that are about 1 kilometre across, a size that we call planet killers,” he said in a statement.
Ultimately, scientists estimate that an asteroid would have to be about 96 km (60 miles) wide to completely and utterly wipe out life on our planet.
What would a 1000 foot asteroid do to Earth?
Scientists observed that the branch from the Taurid Stream could catapult a 1000-foot wide asteroid into the earth's oceans or land mass. A rock of this magnitude could wipe out entire regions if it hits earth. The aftermath scenario is a catastrophic picture of immense destruction and carnage.
In space, there is no air or water, so the only way to lose heat is by radiation, where your warm and wiggly atoms release energy directly into space.
Well, during reentry, we certainly fall inside the atmosphere of Earth. But somehow if you leave the rocket (or any other spacecraft) then first you will experience high friction due to the pull towards the Earth because of gravity and the interference of air resistance. And so, your body will start to burn.
Between 10 and 50 meteorites every day
They land on the ground like a meteorite.
The ocean could be affected by high tsunami and/or pressure waves in the case of a large asteroid or comet impact. Most current submarines can survive at a depth of 400 m, so they might survive long pressure spikes created by the waves above them as high as 200–400 m, but not kilometer size waves.
Kinetic impactor
Kinetic impactors are one way by which we might be able to alter an asteroid's path. In principle, this technique requires smacking an asteroid to change its orbit around the sun so it no longer is a threat to Earth.
However, asteroids with a diameter of 20 m (66 ft), and which strike Earth approximately twice every century, produce more powerful airbursts. The 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor was estimated to be about 20 m in diameter with an airburst of around 500 kilotons, an explosion 30 times the Hiroshima bomb impact.
On Earth, we are protected by a magnetic field and our atmosphere, but asteroids lack this defense. One possibility for defense against this radiation is living inside of an asteroid. It is estimated that humans would be sufficiently protected from radiation by burrowing 100 meters deep inside of an asteroid.
Do asteroids hit the sun? Asteroids certainly hit the sun after having their orbits disturbed by the planets - most objects with unstable orbits only have a few possible destinations in the solar system (the Sun or the planets).
The asteroids that are nearest the sun are mostly made of carbon, with smaller amounts of nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, while the ones further away are made up of silicate rock.
Will an asteroid hit Earth in 2036?
Will Apophis hit Earth? Not anytime soon. It definitely will miss Earth in 2029 and 2036, and radar observations of Apophis during the asteroid's flyby in March 2021 ruled out an impact for at least the next 100 years.
Astronomers consider a near-Earth object a threat if it will come within 4.6 million miles (7.4 million km) of the planet and is at least 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter. If a celestial body of this size crashed into Earth, it could destroy an entire city and cause extreme regional devastation.
As a proof of concept on a small scale, Travis Brashears, a researcher at UC Santa Barbara's Experimental Cosmology Lab, led by Dr. Philip Lubin, has already experimentally verified that laser ablation can de-spin and spin-up an asteroid.
Shoot The Asteroid With Lasers
Space agencies would use solar-powered lasers to vaporize some of the asteroid and break of pieces. As these pieces break off, that force would cause the NEO to change speed and trajectory, ideally enough so that it doesn't impact Earth and destroy life as we know it.
Scientists within the space agency think a carbon-fiber mesh weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of 550 pounds (249 kilograms) could be enough to change the potentially incoming asteroid Apophis' course.
If a nuclear weapon is exploded in a vacuum-i. e., in space-the complexion of weapon effects changes drastically: First, in the absence of an atmosphere, blast disappears completely. Second, thermal radiation, as usually defined, also disappears.
According to the study, it would take about ten to a hundred 'super nukes' to end humanity, a publication reported. Later, a study titled “A National Pragmatic Safety Limit for Nuclear Weapon Quantities” said that any nation that will unleash more than 100 nuclear bombs on another can destroy society.
Originally Answered: Can a nuclear bomb explode in space? Yes. Nuclear bombs use nuclear reactions, so no oxygen is required. The nuclear bomb is triggered by conventional explosives, be even they will work in space since they are self contained and need no oxygen from an atmosphere.
Researchers say the event gives us clues as to whether modern humans could survive a dinosaur-size cataclysm today. The answer is yes, but it would be difficult.
On April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass less than 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) from our planet's surface – closer than the distance of geosynchronous satellites. During that 2029 close approach, Apophis will be visible to observers on the ground in the Eastern Hemisphere without the aid of a telescope or binoculars.
How likely is an asteroid to hit Earth?
While space rocks of this magnitude are likely to hit Earth only every hundred million years or so, NEOs 50 to 100 meters (164 to 328 feet) across can strike much faster, roughly every thousand years, and can destroy a large city or level similarly large areas, and also lead to ecological destruction.
Avian dinosaurs–in other words, birds–survived and flourished. Museum scientists estimate that there are more than 18,000 bird species alive today. A variety of other species also survived on land, including frogs, snakes, lizards and mammals.
Dinosaurs would have continued to thrive had it not been for the asteroid, researchers say. Researchers believe dinosaurs were doing well up until the point of extinction. Dinosaurs were doing well and could have continued to dominate Planet Earth if they had not been wiped out by an asteroid, new research has found.
Scientists calculate that it was blasted into Earth by a 10-kilometer-wide asteroid or comet traveling 30 kilometers per second -- 150 times faster than a jet airliner. Scientists have concluded that the impact that created this crater occurred 65 million years ago.
Based on the revised calculations of the Vredefort crater's original size, the new study suggests that the Vredefort asteroid was likely around twice as large as the dinosaur-killer.
However, if the asteroid falls into the ocean, gigantic waves could be formed in the vicinity of the impact site, and could reach coastal cities.
The asteroid is thought to have been between 10 and 15 km wide, but the velocity of its collision caused the creation of a much larger crater, totalling 150 km in diameter.
We can't smell space directly, because our noses don't work in a vacuum. But astronauts aboard the ISS have reported that they notice a metallic aroma – like the smell of welding fumes – on the surface of their spacesuits once the airlock has re-pressurised.
First, the good news: Your blood won't boil. On Earth, liquids boil at a lower temperature when there's less atmospheric pressure; outer space is a vacuum, with no pressure at all; hence the blood boiling idea.
Space is the ultimate thermos
The sun's radiation may travel through it, but there are no molecules or atoms to absorb that heat. Even when a rock is heated above 100°C by the sun's radiation, the space around it will not absorb any temperature because of the same reason.
Are there any bodies in space?
3 cosmonauts on the Soyuz 11 mission who died in 1971 when returning from a Soviet space station. Their return capsule suffered an accidental decompression. However, their bodies were returned to Earth since the capsule was fully automated. So there are currently no bodies in space.
Yes. For maybe for between 10 and 30 seconds - at the most. A few exceptionally hardy people may be able to retain consciousness for up to 60 seconds. NASA has a BioAstronautics Databook, 2nd Edition, which includes a chapter on animal studies of decompression in a vacuum.
Contrary to popular science fiction, you won't freeze instantly and your eyeballs won't explode but you will become aware of the spit on your tongue boiling away, as well as your sweat. On the whole, you'll experience a kind of fizzy feeling – almost like drinking a carbonated drink.
More than 30000 near-Earth asteroids have been found! To be specific, there are 30039 near-Earth asteroids. A Phy.org report explains that these rocky bodies orbit around the Sun on a path that brings them close to Earth's orbit.
An impact from 1994 WR12 would be catastrophic. NASA says it would strike with an explosion equal to 77 megatons of TNT. For reference, the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear bomb ever tested, was the equivalent of 57 megatons of TNT, according to BBC.
No asteroids have ever been observed to hit the Sun, but that doesn't mean that they don't! Asteroids are normally content to stay in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but occasionally something nudges them out of their original orbits, and they come careening into the inner solar system.
The asteroid belt probably contains millions of asteroids. Astronomers think that the asteroid belt is made up of material that was never able to form into a planet, or of the remains of a planet which broke apart a very long time ago. The asteroids in the asteroid belt come in a variety of sizes.
Some dwarf planets within the Kuiper Belt have thin atmospheres that collapse when their orbit carries them farthest from the Sun.
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called asteroids or minor planets.
No, the asteroid belt is considered to be outside the habitable zone for our Sun. The habitable zone is estimated as about 0.9 to 1.5 AU from the Sun, with the asteroid belt starting about 2.2 AU away, outside the outer edge of the habitable zone.
What planet blew up?
The astronomer and author Tom Van Flandern held that Phaeton (which he called "Planet V", with V representing the Roman numeral for five and not to be confused with the other postulated former fifth planet not attributed to the formation of the asteroid belt) exploded through some internal mechanism.
With current technology the journey to the asteroid belt would be greater than 18 months, suggesting that a crewed mission may be beyond our current technological capabilities.
Back in August 2006 astronomers voted to shake up the Solar System, and the number of planets dropped from nine to eight. Pluto was the one cast aside. There was some outcry that Pluto had been destroyed in an instant and was no longer important, and the reverberations were most keenly felt across America.
When comets from the Oort Cloud approach the Sun, their surface ices vaporize, producing a cometary atmosphere (a coma) and often two tails (one dust, one gas) that can reach hundreds or even millions of miles (or kilometers) in length.
The belt contains only about 4 percent of the Moon's mass in asteroids — not enough to form a planet-sized body.
Once you get beyond the Oort Cloud, there really isn't much mass to speak of. The interstellar volume is largely occupied by the appropriately named Interstellar Medium, or ISM.
Ultimately, planetary ring systems are flat because of the oblate (equatorially bulging) shapes of planets, which creates an asymmetric gravity field around the planets.
Can an asteroid be pure metal? -No; all asteroids contain rock.
Astronomers may have discovered a ninth planet, beyond Pluto, in our solar system. Planet Nine, as it is called, may have ten times the mass of the earth and four times the size. The planet, which has not yet been detected by telescopes, may take up 20,000 years to orbit the sun.
Mars, which is too far from the Sun to be in the habitable zone, once had flowing liquid water. Our robotic space missions there have found evidence of ancient lakes, and minerals that could only have formed in water.
How cold is the asteroid belt?
The temperature of the asteroid belt varies with the distance from the Sun. For dust particles within the belt, typical temperatures range from 200 K (-73 °C) at 2.2 AU down to 165 K (-108 °C) at 3.2 AU.
1. Mars. Mars takes the top spot for several reasons. We know it was once habitable billions of years ago, when it had lakes and rivers of liquid water on its surface.