Asteroid to hit Mars

The TV told me that the crater will be as big as the one in AZ. And my TV doesn't lie to me.
LOL
 
It sounds more like a meteor than an asteroid suince I would expect the latter to make a far larger crater, particularly on a planet with only a third of the gravity of Earth.
 
kaneda said:
It sounds more like a meteor than an asteroid suince I would expect the latter to make a far larger crater, particularly on a planet with only a third of the gravity of Earth.
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What are you talking about?!?! An asteroid BECOMES a meteor when it enters the atmosphere of a planet! :bugeye:
 
I refreshed the Astronomy page and noted that a certain point scoring idiot had answered after me on this thread and wondered how you had managed to display your ignorance in a desperate effort to score a point against me. For your (badly needed) education :

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meteor

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/asteroid


It's all down to size. So according to you, let's see, if 560 mile diameter Ceres came too close to the Earth and entered our atmosphere, it would suddenly shrink down to a tiny meteor so we'd have no problem? :D
 
kaneda said:
I refreshed the Astronomy page and noted that a certain point scoring idiot had answered after me on this thread and wondered how you had managed to display your ignorance in a desperate effort to score a point against me. For your (badly needed) education :

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meteor

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/asteroid


It's all down to size. So according to you, let's see, if 560 mile diameter Ceres came too close to the Earth and entered our atmosphere, it would suddenly shrink down to a tiny meteor so we'd have no problem? :D
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As usual with the derogatory name-calling AND a lack of basic understanding. I thought you didn't believe in references??? But since you gave those, here's an even better one from a NASA website:

"The size of meteorites varies greatly. Most of them are relatively small. The largest meteorite ever found weighs about 66 short tons (60 metric tons). It fell at Hoba West, a farm near Grootfontein, Namibia. However, much larger bodies, such as asteroids and comets, can also strike the earth and become meteorites.

Meteorites reach the earth's surface because they are the right size to travel through the atmosphere. If they are too small, they will disintegrate in the atmosphere. If they are too large, they may explode before reaching the earth's surface. One such object exploded about 6 miles (10 kilometers) above the Tunguska River in Siberia in 1908, leaving a 20-mile (32-kilometer) area of felled and scorched trees. "

Found at this URL: http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cach...ok.html+meteor++size&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
 
Read-Only said:
No, the rovers aren't designed to look skyward and it would be pure luck if they happened to be looking at the proper part of the horizon AND not be be blocked by some mountain or other surface feature. Remember - they sit VERY low on the surface! However, there are currently some orbiters that might very well see the impact.

So it would be MUCH more correct to say that there's likely NO chance the rovers would record it.
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you read what I am saying, yet you take no time to interpret it. All I am saying is that the rover could see what conditions are created when a meteor of a large size hits a planet. I said absolutely nothing about the rover's design in looking skyward. You always seem to jump to conclusions about people's thoughts.
 
USS Exeter said:
you read what I am saying, yet you take no time to interpret it. All I am saying is that the rover could see what conditions are created when a meteor of a large size hits a planet. I said absolutely nothing about the rover's design in looking skyward. You always seem to jump to conclusions about people's thoughts.
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No, you are the one who's jumped to conclusions here. I simply mentioned the fact in passing that the rovers aren't designed to look skyward, meaning that they can't see it approaching. But the main thrust of my post still remains as accurate as when I posted it.

Imagine lying on you stomach and propping up on your arms and hands - that's about as high (or a little more) as the rovers can see. And while in that position, how much do you think you could see with mountains and other obstacles in your line of sight? Answer: not very much at all. Perhaps a very distant dust cloud at the most - but even that is debatable.
 
If the asteroid is on a course for the rover's location? All I am saying is that NASA could see the effects IF the asteroid hits extremely close to the rover. It will likely be destroyed but some data could be analyzed, but my idea remains very unlikely.
 
USS Exeter said:
If the asteroid is on a course for the rover's location? All I am saying is that NASA could see the effects IF the asteroid hits extremely close to the rover. It will likely be destroyed but some data could be analyzed, but my idea remains very unlikely.
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Yes, I would say it HIGHLY unlikely - since we're only talking about two VERY tiny pinpoints on something as big as the entire planet Mars. ;)

Consider this bit of fact. Of all the people on the Earth, there's only been ONE single instance of anyone anywhere having been struck by meteorite. It was a woman in Sylacauga, Al and happened sometime in the late 1950's (or very early 1960's - but I believe the first time period is the correct one.) Think of just how many people there have been here in the last 100 years alone - and she's been the only one. Anyway, that should give you a good idea of the real odds involved.
 
kaneda said:
It sounds more like a meteor than an asteroid suince I would expect the latter to make a far larger crater, particularly on a planet with only a third of the gravity of Earth.
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Where do you get your ideas from ? It will be a question of the natue of the terrain, the mass of the meteor and its velocity on impact. The mass of mars will have a small influence on that velocity.You have it the wrong way round. The fact is that the greater the gravitational attraction of a body, the greater the velocity on impact and the greater the size of the crater, given terrain of the same composition and a meteor of the same size and composition.

As you sem interested in these things, why not get an introduictory book on physics and work through it. The concepts and associated equations are quite simple insofar as your present post is concerned. You should know enough in a week or two to understand what I have told you.
 
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kaneda said:
It sounds more like a meteor than an asteroid suince I would expect the latter to make a far larger crater, particularly on a planet with only a third of the gravity of Earth.
Click to expand...


Where do you get your ideas from ? It will be a question of the natue of the terrain, the mass of the meteor and its velocity on impact. The mass of mars will have a small influence on that velocity.You have it the wrong way round. The fact is that the greater the gravitational of a body, the greater the velocity at impact and the greater the size of the crater, given terrain of the same composition and a meteor of the same size and composition.

As you sem interested in these things, why not get an introduictory book on physics and work through it. The concepts and associated equations are quite simple insofar as your present post is concerned. You should know enough in a week or two to understand what I have told you.
 
Myles said:
Where do you get your ideas from ? It will be a question of the natue of the terrain, the mass of the meteor and its velocity on impact. The mass of mars will have a small influence on that velocity.You have it the wrong way round. The fact is that the greater the gravitational attraction of a body, the greater the velocity on impact and the greater the size of the crater, given terrain of the same composition and a meteor of the same size and composition.

As you sem interested in these things, why not get an introduictory book on physics and work through it. The concepts and associated equations are quite simple insofar as your present post is concerned. You should know enough in a week or two to understand what I have told you.
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Sadly, he will never buy a book. He thinks that they (and all professional scientists) are out to quash new innovative thinking and hold back the real progress of science. :shrug: I dare you to challenge his belief that the Doppler effect isn't correct. ;)
 
Read-Only said:
No, you are the one who's jumped to conclusions here. I simply mentioned the fact in passing that the rovers aren't designed to look skyward, meaning that they can't see it approaching. But the main thrust of my post still remains as accurate as when I posted it.

Imagine lying on you stomach and propping up on your arms and hands - that's about as high (or a little more) as the rovers can see. And while in that position, how much do you think you could see with mountains and other obstacles in your line of sight? Answer: not very much at all. Perhaps a very distant dust cloud at the most - but even that is debatable.
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Read-Only, the rover's cameras can image the Martian sky. The twin panoramic cameras and twin navigation cameras are mounted on a mast that gives 360 degree rotational motion and 90 degree up and down motion. They often image the sky to assess atmospheric clearity and to look for clouds. Whether either of the rovers would be in a good location to image a meteor trail in the atmosphere or not is not known as of yet, but the rovers are on opposite sides of Mars.
 
2inquisitive said:
Read-Only, the rover's cameras can image the Martian sky. The twin panoramic cameras and twin navigation cameras are mounted on a mast that gives 360 degree rotational motion and 90 degree up and down motion. They often image the sky to assess atmospheric clearity and to look for clouds. Whether either of the rovers would be in a good location to image a meteor trail in the atmosphere or not is not known as of yet, but the rovers are on opposite sides of Mars.
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Thanks for that - I wasn't aware they could be aimed skyward. Learned something new today. :)
 
Read-Only. NASA let the tea boys fill in such sites as you quoted which is why I don't use them and you do. Try :

Chicxulub, located on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, eluded detection for decades because it was hidden (and at the same time preserved) beneath a kilometer of younger rocks and sediments. Size isn't the only thing that makes Chicxulub special. Most scientists now agree it's the "smoking gun" -- evidence that a huge asteroid or comet indeed crashed into Earth's surface 65 million years ago causing the extinction of more than 70 percent of the living species on the planet, including the dinosaurs. This idea was first proposed by the father and son team of Luis and Walter Alvarez in 1980.
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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=8


Yet the site you used calls that a meteor.
 
Myles said:
Where do you get your ideas from ? It will be a question of the natue of the terrain, the mass of the meteor and its velocity on impact. The mass of mars will have a small influence on that velocity.You have it the wrong way round. The fact is that the greater the gravitational attraction of a body, the greater the velocity on impact and the greater the size of the crater, given terrain of the same composition and a meteor of the same size and composition.

As you sem interested in these things, why not get an introduictory book on physics and work through it. The concepts and associated equations are quite simple insofar as your present post is concerned. You should know enough in a week or two to understand what I have told you.
Click to expand...


No need to get hysterical and jabber wildly. You just have to ask me to explain further. Mars has a third Earth's gravity. That means that it is not so densely packed in the first place with only a third of Earth's gravity pushing down on it so any impact will throw much more material into the air which will drift muchg further with only 1/3 gravity trying to pull it down again. So a much bigger impact site as compared to Earth.
 
invert_nexus said:
"If a small asteroid or large meteoroid survives its fiery passage through the Earth's atmosphere and lands upon the Earth's surface, it is then called a meteorite."

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/faq/#diff
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Meteor : The light phenomena which results when a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere and vaporizes; a shooting star.

Meteoroid : A small particle from a comet or asteroid orbiting the Sun.

Meteorite : A meteoroid that survives its passage through the Earth's atmosphere and lands upon the Earth's surface.

An ambiguous site which doesn't even agree with itself. Why do they let teaboys write such things?
 
It's fucking simple.

Meteoroid and asteroid are names for objects in space. Asteroids are big. Meteoroids are small.
Meteor is the name of the light phenomenon as they enter the atmosphere.
Meteorite is what they're called after they've hit the ground.

Stop being an ass.
 
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