Exercise 1 - Modeling the effects of an asteroid or comet impact PDF

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Modeling the effects of an asteroid or comet impact...

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Name: Avery Apanius Modeling the effects of an asteroid or comet impact Learning Outcomes: By the end of this exercise you will:  

Be able to describe the origin, physical characteristics and the potential hazards to society from asteroids and comets that might impact Earth Determine the types and severity of impact hazards given a method to model the effects of an asteroid or comet threatening society

Warm-up activity: Without warning, a meteor exploded over Russia in February of 2013 injuring over a thousand people. This was perhaps the most documented meteor explosion in history as it was recorded on numerous security cameras and the telephones of every-day Russian citizens on their way to work. You can view this explosion if you conduct a YouTube search on “Chelyabinsk meteor video February 2013.” One of the better videos can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztrU90Ub4Uw While events such as these are relatively rare, we know they happen and the consequences can be much more severe than that of the recent Chelyabinsk meteor. In this exercise, you will find out what we know about meteors and comets, the threats they pose and how we might react if one were coming our way. To start that investigation, let’s see what is headed toward Earth on or near the time of your next birthday. Go to the site link below and find an asteroid that will make a close approach to Earth on or nearest to your next birthday. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/ On this site, change the setting for “plus/minus 30 days” to “Future (within a year)” and set the number of entries displayed to “100”. Leave all other variables in the table at their default settings. Find the data for the asteroid making a close approach on the day of (or nearest to) your next birthday. Enter the data for your asteroid into the last line of the Table as shown below (the data on the second line is for the asteroid nearest the Professor’s birthday when this exercise was written).

Enter the data from your asteroid to the last row of this table: Object

Close-Approach (CA) Date

CA Distance Nominal (LD|au)

2014 OA339

2017-Aug-13 19:13 ± 1_17:53

2003 UV11

2017-Oct-31 03:01±...