Space is frightening.

The Tunguska event was caused by an object estimated 200ft, and the destruction was 750+ square miles. Estimated destructive power of 15-30 megatons of TNT, or a very large nuclear warhead.

I don't live in the world where a 1 mile wide comet hitting Earth would "do just about nothing".

It's possible for a larger blast to disintegrate the atmosphere entirely.

Estimated 3.6m nuclear warheads in the 15 kiloton range would be required to completely annihilate the surface of the Earth:

https://gizmodo.com/5899569/how-many-nukes-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-entire-planet

There are asteroids and comets out there that could easily match that yield in an explosion.

The one that destroyed the dinosaurs was way more than that:


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2307097/How-asteroid-wiped-dinosaurs-sparked-global-firestorm-turned-sky-red.html

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The explosion itself would have released as much energy as 100 trillion tons of TNT, more than a billion times more than the atom bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Something a bit less than what hit the Dinosaurs could do pretty much the same thing. This was a 6 mile wide (estimated) object.

Comets move at considerably higher velocity on average than asteroids, so they'd actually hit with *more* kinetic energy, not less, even if the asteroid was a little heavier. A comet could potentially be worse than K/T impact 65m years ago.

Jupiter got hammered by a comet:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker%E2%80%93Levy_9

If Earth got Shoemaker-Levy 9, and not Jupiter, we'd be obliterated!

Jupiter is basically 'all atmosphere' as it's a gas giant, and the impact left a scar on on Jupiter for several months.

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Calculations showed that its unusual fragmented form was due to a previous closer approach to Jupiter in July 1992. At that time, the orbit of Shoemaker–Levy 9 passed within Jupiter's Roche limit, and Jupiter's tidal forces had acted to pull apart the comet. The comet was later observed as a series of fragments ranging up to 2 km (1.2 mi) in diameter.

Since 1 mile wide comets 'do almost nothing', we'd definitely survive such an impact here on Earth. Sit on the patio and enjoy the fireworks. Never mind that black eye Jupiter got, which happens to be a whelp larger than the Earth is.

"The comet was later observed as a series of fragments ranging up to 2 km (1.2 mi) in diameter."

It wasn't a singular impact.

What's worse? Comet or Asteroid impact?

https://www.space.com/26264-asteroids-comets-earth-impact-risks.html

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Discussions about "death from above" scenarios usually center on asteroids, but a comet impact could be far more devastating than a space rock strike.

Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) have Earth-like orbits, so their collisions with Earth tend to be glancing blows from behind or from the side. But comets travel around the sun in more random paths and can thus slam into the planet head-on, with potentially catastrophic results, researchers say.

"It would be a much bigger explosion, a much bigger crater, much more damage," impact expert Mark Boslough, of Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, said on June 5. He made the comment during a webcast produced by the online Slooh community observatory, which previewed the June 8 Earth flyby of the asteroid 2014 HQ124. [Amazing Comet Photos of 2013 by Stargazers]

In fact, comets can be traveling up to three times faster than NEAs relative to Earth at the time of impact, Boslough added. The energy released by a cosmic collision increases as the square of the incoming object's speed, so a comet could pack nine times more destructive power than an asteroid of the same mass.

Bullshit! They do *ALMOST NOTHING*

The Asteroid that annihilated the dinosaurs was only 6 miles wide, and it caused a global wide firestorm. There are ash layers in the K/T boundary that prove it.

A 1 mile wide comet could easily be within those destructive parameters. Again, that's not my opinion, that's a fact.

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faerwin wrote:

"The comet was later observed as a series of fragments ranging up to 2 km (1.2 mi) in diameter."

It wasn't a singular impact.

But if 1 mile wide comets do almost nothing, why does it suddenly matter that it's not a singular impact? How many times does 'almost nothing' need to multiply itself to become 'something'? Also, they said *up to* 1.2 miles in diameter, and if a 1 mile wide comet is *almost nothing*, then stuff that's 1/4-1/2 a mile wide shouldn't even count, should it? And now the whole 'It wasn't a singular impact' narrative doesn't seem to hold up to the 'almost nothing' logic for 1 mile wide comets hitting a planet, lmao. Trust me, there were comets that were less than 'almost nothing' that left scars on Jupiter for months.

Because if we take a comet the size of the swift-tuttle and it ends up breaking up in a way that there isn't anything bigger than 1 mile big, it would still be almost 4100 1 mile sized objects that still pack the same kinetic force as if it didn't break apart.

The fact that it broke apart does not change anything if the impact are all happening one after the other in the same zone, especially so in the case of Jupiter because there's no ground to absorb part of the impact energy.


You are also cherry picking the "ideal" scenario for your comet vs an asteroid.


As for the "scars" on Jupiter, just because they were caused by the comet's remains doesn't mean that they were there because of the strength of the impact in the same way that a crater does.

It's possible that the gases in the comet merged with other gases or just by themselves, gave that brownish color. Keep in mind that with Jupiter, you aren't seeing the ground but just clouds. It's also possible that the heating up of the gases nearby allowed them to climb the atmosphere and give that brownish tint.

Impact experts say comets have more impact energy that asteroids. Up to 9x for the same amount of mass. I don't really see what point you're trying to argue here.

When asked, "what is worse" the expert didn't reply herp! derp! comet just melts in Earth's atmosphere, herpaderpaderp, the reply was bigger explosions and bigger craters (implying that comets can in fact penetrate Earth's atmosphere).

cold ice is an exploding material! Tunguska event was probably a comet>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

They said can be, not simply "comet = more dangerous"

Comets do have a tendency to be faster than asteroids but they also have a tendency to be composed of lighter elements (less mass).

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/70-our-solar-system/comets-meteors-and-asteroids/general-questions/283-why-are-the-compositions-of-comets-and-asteroids-different-intermediate


Still, the very math I gave you showed that a comet of identical density with the swift-tuttle and with the same speed would only release a very small percentage of the energy released from the impact of the celestial body that wiped out dinosaurs.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/xu2/

Hiroshima was around 63 terajoules (6,3 e+13)
Nagashadi was around 84 terajoules (8,4 e+13)
Chicxulub is estimated to be 1,15 e+23.
swift-tuttle potential impact is estimated at 30 times the Chicxulub impact, so 3,45 e+24
the potential 1 mile comet with identical velocity and density is 4,096 e+10 times less powerful, so 3,45 e+24 / 4,096 e+10 = 8,4228515625 e13

So there you go, the amount of energy release by such comet would be just about aspowerful as the nagashaki bomb.

So yes, a 1 mile comet would do almost nothing unless you happened to live close to the impact point.

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lolozori wrote:

cold ice is an exploding material! Tunguska event was probably a comet>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

estimated to be 1 petajoule, which is 1000 terajoules.

So either there's something wrong with that estimation or there's something wrong with the estimation I've seen on my end.