Armageddon-How To Save The World

Image result for earth blowing upIn the movie Armageddon, a team of misfit oil drillers become world's last hope for survival. After an asteroid, the size of Texas, comes barreling towards Earth, humanity is given only 18 days to come up with a solution. Teaming up with NASA, the drillers plan to fly to space. Their goal is to land on the asteroid, drill an 800 ft hole in it, then plant a nuclear bomb inside. The objective is to blow up the asteroid into 2 pieces, projecting them on path to that is out of harms way. This plan would not work because the two pieces would not have enough time to separate, and they would still crash into our home planet, destroying everything. Since this catastrophe is bound to happen at some point, I have thought of a solution that might be a little more effective.

Since the asteroid is made of iron, a very magnetic material, my plan would be to use the strongest, non-destructive, electromagnet to slowly decrease it's velocity, then deflect the asteroid back into space. The worlds strongest, non-destructive magnet has a strength of 100 teslas. This is 500,000 times stronger than Earth's gravitational pull. The side of the asteroid that is facing earth would need to be determined either positive or negative, in which then the electromagnet would face back the same magnetic pole; since corresponding magnetic poles repel each other. To add to the strength of the magnetic forces, multiple electromagnets could be strategically placed to help contain and slow the asteroid. With the massive asteroid traveling at 22,000 mph, the opposing magnetic forces would hopefully be strong enough to slow down the asteroid completely, and force it back into space, ridding earth of danger. As stated in the movie though, there always needs to be a back up plan. So in addition to using magnetic forces to counter the velocity of the asteroid, governments could also aim multiple nukes at the giant space rock. With nukes having a potential energy of 1 megaton, multiple nuke hits to the asteroid would substantially help the slowing and redirection of it.


Comments

  1. Prof. Chris FragileOctober 2, 2017 at 11:53 AM

    Well... that's an interesting idea. Iron is not technically magnetic, but rather is ferromagnetic. That means it doesn't normally have a magnetic field of its own, but if placed in a magnetic field can have a magnetic field induced in it. This induced magnetic field will always be such that the piece of iron is attracted to the source magnet (iron filings always cling to a magnet; they are never repulsed from it). That point aside, I also have a question as to how you are going to keep your magnet (or magnets) in place while they are pulling on this asteroid. Remember, the asteroid is traveling at 22,000 mph. Where are the magnets going to be. Finally, you didn't do much to demonstrate that your plan would actually work. You gave a strength for the magnet, but that was about it.

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