News of the Wyrd

[Louis VI the Fat]

I've long wanted a thread in which to post minor news. About events that won't create enough discussion to warrant a thread of their own. But that would be a shame if they weren't shared here. Because they touch on subjects that are often brought up here, are of known interest to posters here, or are simply newsworthy in itself. Some of it gets posted in the News of the Weird thread.

The News of the Weird thread should be reserved for weirdness proper. For keeping track of the octosquid movements, for unspeakable acts commited on unwary material objects, for sordidness and depravity, for the bizarre and surreal.

That thread doesn't lend itself for any smaller discussion either. Hence, I'd like to try this thread. News of the Wyrd (http://www.wyrdwords.vispa.com/heathenry/whatwyrd.html). A dumping ground for all sorts of minor news that members would like to share, with room to debate the events that fate, chance or conscious will throw upon an unsuspecting world.



The most fundamental concept in heathenry is wyrd. It is also one of the most difficult to explain and hence one of the most often misunderstood. Here's my stab at an accurate yet relatively brief discussion of how wyrd works and how we can work with wyrd.

The philosopher Schopenhauer voiced the notion that "our lives are somehow irresistibly shaped into a coherent whole by forces beyond our conscious will. He believed that neither chance events nor inborn character were enough to explain the consistency and direction in the life course of an individual, and so he postulated "the intention of Fate" to explain this controlling force in our lives. Many people have equated the notion of wyrd with this sort of "fate" concept, and the Norns with the Moerae or Parcae, the Greek and Roman Fates. However, to do so is to ignore the constant interplay between personal wyrd and universal wyrd and the role we each play in creating our own destiny.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Cruise liner sinking after hitting iceberg! (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2215950,00.html)

An cruise liner, said to be able to withstand arctic conditions, was hit by an iceberg last night. It is sinking rapidly. Most of the passengers escaped in lifeboats, and are desperatly awaiting rescue from a warned nearby ship that heeded their SOS. The captain is still on board, and might go down with his ship...


The ship, called the M/S Explorer, is listing to 25 degrees near the South Shetland Islands, south of Argentina, after hitting an iceberg.


Andy Cattrell, of the Falmouth Coastguard, said: "It [the M/S Explorer] has hit something significant certainly because this vessel is designed to operate in these areas.

"It is an old vessel - built in 1969, I believe - but it is a very well-constructed vessel designed to be down there. We know from the American coastguards that there are 154 persons on board, all abandoned into lifeboats apart from the master and chief officer.

"We are awaiting now news of the vessel the Antarctic Dream, which should arrive in just over an hour or so. They should be able to pick up the people from the lifeboats who are, as far as we know, safe in the lifeboats."

[Louis VI the Fat]

Sometimes, don't ascribe to stupidity what can be ascribed to malice. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7108676.stm) :furious3:


Authorities in Brazil are investigating reports that a young woman was left in a police cell with some 20 men for a month and repeatedly sexually abused.

Governor Ana Julia Carepa said the age of the woman, put variously at 15 and 20, was irrelevant as she should not have been jailed with male prisoners. Women's rights groups in Brazil say it is not an isolated case.

According to reports in the Brazilian media, the number of men in the cell with the young woman varied from between 20 to more than 30.


Media reports suggested that the girl was placed in a police cell in the town of Abaetetuba on suspicion of theft. But human-rights groups say there is uncertainty about what offence the girl was accused of and she was not formally charged.

They say that she was raped relentlessly and forced to have sex in order to obtain food. The police are said to have believed at one stage that the girl was not under age.

[Vladimir]

A month huh? That's the kind of evil that smothers your heart in a black embrace.

[Gregoshi]

Sometimes, don't ascribe to stupidity what can be ascribed to malice. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7108676.stm) :furious3:

It is actions like this that make it very difficult to maintain rational thought when it comes to the subject of justice. ~:pissed:

[Papewaio]

I'm against person vs person capital death sentences.

But when it is state vs person, those cops should be executed by shoving durians up where the sun doesn't shine until dead dead dead.

[Pannonian]

Cruise liner sinking after hitting iceberg! (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2215950,00.html)

The ship, called the M/S Explorer, is listing to 25 degrees near the South Shetland Islands, south of Argentina, after hitting an iceberg.
It's the fault of the country it's registered with. Icebergs tend to target Linux-registered ships rather less frequently, as they are rarer and thus less rewarding to sink.

[Caius]

M$ Explorer
Some hacker has made a secret message here.

[Lemur]

Why couldn't they just let her teach Biology (http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN2327572220071123)?

"Porno-prof" teacher suspended

ROME - An Italian teacher has been suspended from school because of her extra-curricular activities as a porn star, local authorities announced Thursday.

The out-of-hours behavior of Anna Ciriani, who calls herself "Madameweb" in hard-core videos on the Internet and at erotic shows, was "not compatible with educational activity," the head of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia education authority said.

Ciriani, dubbed the "porno-prof" by Italy's main newspapers, said she never let her hobby get in the way of her teaching.

"My behavior at school has always been professional and irreproachable," she was quoted as saying by the AGI agency.

"I am a normal woman, with my family and my work as a teacher. I am (also) looking for transgression and sex."

Five years ago Ciriani was transferred from her post as teacher of Italian literature in a secondary school in the north-eastern town of Pordenone after students covered the toilets with nude photos of her downloaded from the Internet.

Since then she has been giving evening classes to foreign adult students in a nearby town.

Madameweb's popularity surged after a video of her shot at the Venus erotica festival in Berlin last month attracted a wide Internet following, prompting the authorities to suspend her from teaching altogether.

[InsaneApache]

Any chance of a link to the rude photos? :laugh4:

[Louis VI the Fat]

A Tale of Two Cities, part I.



'Cultural guerrillas' cleared of lawbreaking over secret workshop in Pantheon.

It is one of Paris's most celebrated monuments, a neoclassical masterpiece that has cast its shadow across the city for more than two centuries.
But it is unlikely that the Panthéon, or any other building in France's capital, will have played host to a more bizarre sequence of events than those revealed in a court last week.

Four members of an underground "cultural guerrilla" movement known as the Untergunther, whose purpose is to restore France's cultural heritage, were cleared on Friday of breaking into the 18th-century monument in a plot worthy of Dan Brown or Umberto Eco.

Continued below:
For a year from September 2005, under the nose of the Panthéon's unsuspecting security officials, a group of intrepid "illegal restorers" set up a secret workshop and lounge in a cavity under the building's famous dome. Under the supervision of group member Jean-Baptiste Viot, a professional clockmaker, they pieced apart and repaired the antique clock that had been left to rust in the building since the 1960s. Only when their clandestine revamp of the elaborate timepiece had been completed did they reveal themselves.
"When we had finished the repairs, we had a big debate on whether we should let the Panthéon's officials know or not," said Lazar Klausmann, a spokesperson for the Untergunther. "We decided to tell them in the end so that they would know to wind the clock up so it would still work.

"The Panthéon's administrator thought it was a hoax at first, but when we showed him the clock, and then took him up to our workshop, he had to take a deep breath and sit down."

The Centre of National Monuments, embarrassed by the way the group entered the building so easily, did not take to the news kindly, taking legal action and replacing the administrator.

Getting into the building was the easiest part, according to Klausmann. The squad allowed themselves to be locked into the Panthéon one night, and then identified a side entrance near some stairs leading up to their future hiding place. "Opening a lock is the easiest thing for a clockmaker," said Klausmann. From then on, they sneaked in day or night under the unsuspecting noses of the Panthéon's officials.

"I've been working here for years," said a ticket officer at the Panthéon who wished to remain anonymous. "I know every corner of the building. And I never noticed anything."

The hardest part of the scheme was carrying up the planks used to make chairs and tables to furnish the Untergunther's cosy squat cum workshop, which has sweeping views over Paris.

The group managed to connect the hideaway to the electricity grid and install a computer connected to the net.

Klausmann and his crew are connaisseurs of the Parisian underworld. Since the 1990s they have restored crypts, staged readings and plays in monuments at night, and organised rock concerts in quarries. The network was unknown to the authorities until 2004, when the police discovered an underground cinema, complete with bar and restaurant, under the Seine. They have tried to track them down ever since.

But the UX, the name of Untergunther's parent organisation, is a finely tuned organisation. It has around 150 members and is divided into separate groups, which specialise in different activities ranging from getting into buildings after dark to setting up cultural events. Untergunther is the restoration cell of the network.

Members know Paris intimately. Many of them were students in the Latin Quarter in the 80s and 90s, when it was popular to have secret parties in Paris's network of tunnels. They have now grown up and become nurses or lawyers, but still have a taste for the capital's underworld, and they now have more than just partying on their mind.

"We would like to be able to replace the state in the areas it is incompetent," said Klausmann. "But our means are limited and we can only do a fraction of what needs to be done. There's so much to do in Paris that we won't manage in our lifetime."

The Untergunther are already busy working on another restoration mission Paris. The location is top secret, of course. But the Panthéon clock remains one of its proudest feats.

"The Latin Quarter is where the concept of human rights came from, it's the centre of everything. The Panthéon clock is in the middle of it. So it's a bit like the clock at the centre of the world."
Urban Guerrilla I (http://www.ugwk.eu/)



The Panthéon, the centre of the Quartier Latin, in the rain:
https://img225.imageshack.us/img225/6417/pantheonap3.jpg

[Louis VI the Fat]

A Tale of Two Cities, part II.

Riots in Paris!

News? Hardly. Exasparating? Definately. :shame:



Riots break out in Paris suburbs

Rioters blocked roads with burning cars

Youths have damaged police stations, shops and cars in two Paris suburbs, following the deaths of two teenagers whose motorbike hit a police car.
Police said 21 officers were injured in the rioting in the northern suburbs of Villiers-le-Bel and Arnouville.

The Villiers-le-Bel police station was set ablaze and another in Arnouville was pillaged, police say. At least seven people were arrested.

The violence - reminiscent of riots in 2005 - lasted for more than six hours. In 2005, the deaths of two youths in nearby Clichy-sous-Bois led to France's worst civil unrest in more than 40 years.

Clashes broke out on Sunday night after two teenagers - aged 15 and 16 - were killed when the motorcycle they were driving collided with a police car. Police sources said the two were riding a stolen mini-motorcycle, and that neither was wearing a helmet. The police car was on a routine patrol and the teenagers were not being chased by police at the time of the accident, police said.

Burning cars

After the accident, dozens of youths went on a rampage, setting the police station in Villiers-le-Bel on fire, ransacking the Arnouville police station and torching two petrol stations.


Riot police were sent to the area, but youths blocked their way with burning cars. French media report that the rioters also damaged the Arnouville-Villiers-le-Bel railway station and nearby shops.

Omar Sehhouli, the brother of one of the dead teenagers said that the rioting "was not violence but an expression of rage".

In 2005, country-wide riots erupted after the electrocution of two teenagers from another Parisian suburb - Clichy-sous-Bois - in an electricity sub-station. They were reported to have been fleeing police at the time. Relations between police and young people in many deprived areas have continued to be tense ever since. Must they have an intifada everytime a criminal wins himself a Darwin Award? :wall:

Urban Guerrilla II (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7112497.stm)

[Fragony]

Cool here as well!

http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/32967/bf0bee85/hamas,_hamas.html

'Hamas hamas, all the jews on the gas'

Aren't they cute? :beam:



Why doesn't the article mention that one officer was shot in the face?

[Husar]

Must they have an intifada everytime a criminal wins himself a Darwin Award? :wall:
What? It's obviously the fault of the police for being there.
The police should do their work, sit behind their desks and protect umm....errr....protect....ehm, the money they steal from fast drivers and so on. :stupido2:

I mean we cannot invite people here and then chase them around after stealing or stand in their way when they're not adhering to the law, that's just...rude! :sweatdrop:

[Odin]

Must they have an intifada everytime a criminal wins himself a Darwin Award? :wall:


So can I deduce from your statement that these are mostly muslim youths? Without going to far into the mud on european issues, I see more and more situations where "youths" in EU countries is code for "immigration issue"

Is my observation valid?

[Fragony]

Is water wet and is the pope a catholic, of course.

[Fragony]

update Paris, 64 policemen wounded, 5 seriously. One gunshot in the face, one in the shoulder. Numerous buildings burned down and of course the usual cars. Sarkozy lead the way, you know what expect from you. Here is your chance to become the hero of taxpaying freedomlovig europeans.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Oh no! An Agatha Christie was going to be put on in an Ohio high school!!

Luckily, the NAACP sprung into action to condemn this racist action, and insist on diversity training programs for thousands of school district employees, which are coincidently offered by a company owned by the President of the local NAACP branch.


Powell said Hines [local NAACP Pres] has a history of making racial accusations against Lakota schools with his personal financial interests sometimes coming into play.

In 2002, Hines accused Lakota schools of widespread, systemic racism and recommended that more than 2,000 Lakota employees be required to enroll in diversity and cultural sensitivity training similar to what was offered by his company. He promised to compile a report months later detailing his accusations against the schools but never produced a document.

Hines, however, has continued to allege racism in the school district.

One senior gets it:

Lakota East senior Luke Null, who has rehearsed since September to perform as one of the lead characters, said "pressure from the local NAACP canceled the play."

"I read the play as part of a class in the ninth grade. There are no racial undertones in it at all, and we weren't putting on the play under it's original name from 1939. We were putting on the play under another name," Null said. He and other theater students are now scrambling to find another play to perform some time early in 2008.

"Some of our First Amendment rights were censored. The race card is a pretty strong card," he said.
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071127/NEWS01/711270344/1056/COL02

Thank goodness we have the NAACP to squelch anything they say is racist and get a little somethin'-somethin' for themselves on the way.

CR

[woad&fangs]

I hate the NAACP. I have never seen any good come out of them this century.

[HoreTore]

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyid=2007-11-29T030813Z_01_N28568914_RTRUKOC_0_US-SANTA.xml

This one certainly belongs here. Lumps of coal, anyone?

EDIT: dang, should've been weird, not wyrd... Curses!

[Crazed Rabbit]

Britain continues its tradition of spending taxpayer's money through the nose to come up with stupid or lame slogans:
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/2007/11/28/new_slogan_welcome_to_scotland/7038/


GLASGOW, Scotland, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- Scotland has replaced its airport signs proclaiming the country to be "the best small country in the world" with a new slogan: "Welcome to Scotland."

The new slogan, which was revealed Tuesday after six months of development and $250,000 spent on the project, is also printed on the posters in Gaelic as "Failte gu Alba," The Times of London reported Wednesday.


:no:

CR

[Husar]

"Welcome to Scotland"?

Must've been a real genius who came up with such an innovative and entirely new idea for a mere 250,000$. :laugh4:

[Uesugi Kenshin]

"Welcome to Scotland"?

Must've been a real genius who came up with such an innovative and entirely new idea for a mere 250,000$. :laugh4:

Man I could have done that for them for $20 plus a kilt, not counting the fee to make the signs, but they'd still be way under budget.

[Fragony]

Sometimes, don't ascribe to stupidity what can be ascribed to malice. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7108676.stm) :furious3:

Update, police not only did nothing but did nothing while taping it.

[Vladimir]

Update, police not only did nothing but did nothing while taping it.

With an old 8mm camera with which they also recorded Elvis and the Second Coming! Don't ask me to provide a source though.

[macsen rufus]

"Welcome to Scotland"?

Must've been a real genius who came up with such an innovative and entirely new idea for a mere 250,000$.

Too damn true it was genius -- when was the last time you got paid so much for doing so little? :laugh4:

[Vladimir]

Wyrd indeed (http://blogs.photopreneur.com/the-worlds-most-famous-photoshop-fakes).

[Vladimir]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=506686&in_page_id=1770

[Viking]

Space rock not to hit Mars after all.



An asteroid nearing Mars will not crash into the planet later this month, scientists said Wednesday.

New observations of the Mars-bound Asteroid 2007 WD5 have allowed astronomers to refine their predictions for the space rock's position during its red planet rendezvous on Jan. 30, according an update by NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) program office.

"As a result, the impact probability has dropped dramatically, to approximately 0.01 percent or 1-in-10,000 odds, effectively ruling out the possible collision with Mars," researchers said in the Jan. 9 report.
SPACE.com (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080109-mars-asteroid-update.html)


Blasted. :wall:

[Vladimir]

Took them long enough. What if it was headed for us?

[Viking]

If we discovered an asteroid just a few weeks/months before it was due to hit the Earth, we would probably not be able to do anything with our current technologies. Provided it was small enough maybe an already existing nuclear warhead could destroy it, though another possibility is a shower of big space rocks.
Little is known in this field of science; I have yet to see a NASA report telling us how to deflect an incoming asteroid.

Some more near-Earth asteroid stuff for thos interested:


SPACE.com: Asteroid Jiggles Like a Jar of Mixed Nuts
(http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070419_shaking_asteroid.html)

Like a jiggled jar of mixed nuts, shaking on the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa is sorting loose rock particles on its surface by size, causing the smallest grains to sink into depressions, a new study suggests.

Researchers analyzed images of a mix of boulders and gravel, called regolith, covering the surface of Itokawa. The images, taken by the Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft in 2005, revealed that some areas were coated with fine particles and appeared smooth, while others regions looked bumpy, as if the asteroid suffered an intense case of acne.

In a study detailed in the April 20 issue of ScienceExpress, an online publication of the journal Science, researchers suggest the regolith's patchy distribution is the result of shaking, which causes the finest and lightest materials to accumulate in dips on the asteroid's surface, where the local gravity is lowest.

"It's sort of like if you poured water over Itokawa, all the water would tend to pool in these [low] regions," said study team member Daniel Scheeres of the University of Michigan. "The water would flow downhill until it couldn't go downhill anymore."

Close-up image of the asteroid surface:

https://img299.imageshack.us/img299/5779/070419itorocks02aa3.jpg

I do not know the size of those "boulders", but the whole asteroid is 535 × 294 × 209 meters in diameter.

[Vladimir]

That's exactly the type of body that would be unaffected by a nuclear blast. The denser the better.

[atheotes]

That's exactly the type of body that would be unaffected by a nuclear blast. The denser the better.

even if we drill a hole and plant the nuclear warhead inside??? :logic: ~:rolleyes:

[Husar]

Unaffected is a strong word...
It should be enough to make it change it's course, no need to destroy it, just make it fly towards the sun or so.

[Viking]

even if we drill a hole and plant the nuclear warhead inside??? :logic: ~:rolleyes:

It'd probably be better to attach an gravitational tractor to it. Problem is neither solution is avaible on instant; and that both solutions takes alot of time.


Unaffected is a strong word...
It should be enough to make it change it's course, no need to destroy it, just make it fly towards the sun or so.

While it certainly wouldn't be unaffected, I doubt it'd be easy to change its path to something preferably; instead you might change the impact zone, e.g. from N.Y. to the Atlantic Ocean, maybe increasing the number of casualties.

[Husar]

While it certainly wouldn't be unaffected, I doubt it'd be easy to change its path to something preferably; instead you might change the impact zone, e.g. from N.Y. to the Atlantic Ocean, maybe increasing the number of casualties.
Well, to change the course more, you just need to send more nukes, one after another. :shrug:

[Viking]

Well, to change the course more, you just need to send more nukes, one after another. :shrug:

If you do not know the morphology of the asteroid, then it is hard to know what another nuke will do. You need time in order to map an asteroids morphology (building a new spacecraft from scratch, how long will it take?); something that we don't necessarily will get.

An asteroid could theoretically be discovered only days/weeks before impact, in which case we can do nothing. Some say with current technologies we do in fact need a decade or two in order to deflect an asteroid (nukes do not work at all).

[Husar]

What? Fire one after the other and have them all explode at the same side of the asteroid, if that's won't make the asteroid change direction....then we need bigger nukes. ~D

[Viking]

How are you going to get those nukes there? What is going to carry them?

[Husar]

Their own rocket motors usually, as far as I'm aware ICBMs fly through space anyway to get to their target, you may just have to update the targeting and navigation systems to enable them to target the asteroid.

I also saw a proposition on Tv once where they wanted to build a really big spacecraft with an air pad to fly against the asteroid and push it onto another course. ~D

[KukriKhan]

Duelling physicists discuss this in this forum (http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=129368&page=2). The conclusion I get: we don't yet have the machinery necessary to divert a near-earth object.

[Viking]

Their own rocket motors usually, as far as I'm aware ICBMs fly through space anyway to get to their target, you may just have to update the targeting and navigation systems to enable them to target the asteroid.

I also saw a proposition on Tv once where they wanted to build a really big spacecraft with an air pad to fly against the asteroid and push it onto another course. ~D

ICBMs fly into space...and straight down afterwards. ICBMs cannot help us in asteroide defense, not at all in fact ~;)

The problem with your second solution is also time. It'll take alot of time to build the thing, and alot of time to redirect the asteroid.


Duelling physicists discuss this in this forum (http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=129368&page=2). The conclusion I get: we don't yet have the machinery necessary to divert a near-earth object.

Which is worrisome; even though the odds of an asteroid impact happening in our lifetime is diminishingly low.

[Husar]

Well, it all takes time, but so far it looks like we're trying to take the easy route and evacuate everybody to Mars when a comet comes, what a great idea. :stupido2:

Although if a comet impact darkens our athmosphere for a few hundred years, cutting off sunlight, we still have a warm and fuzzy core underneath us which we could exploit, that is if it's suitable to grow plants somehow or else we may just have to get used to eating moss. :sweatdrop:

[Sigurd]

I am no scientist but why are nukes considered the option #1 in these hypothetical questions?

NASA did a high velocity impact test on the comet Tempel 1 with a 770 lb probe. The crater was about 100m wide and 30m deep.
I mean, a 350 kg object with instruments made a huge crater. What would a dense object of several tons do to an asteroid? Multiply it with several such objects and higher velocities, you could pulverise any rock floating in space.
One scientist said (http://web.archive.org/web/20070521082005/http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/11/08/marinabai.shtml): "the change to the orbit of the comet after the collision was only about 10 cm”.

If you are going to land on such a space object why plant nuclear bombs? Why not fasten rockets to steer the asteroid away from a colliding course?
In fact, China revealed their plan (http://web.archive.org/web/20050830003558/http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1163067.cms)to do just such a thing a few days after NASA’s success with Deep Impact.

[Husar]

Yes, you're right, but in case of the rockets it may be problematic if it's rotating around itself and you may need a lot of calculations to do it right.
I think a nuclear warhead is almost the same as igniting a pretty strong rocket for a split second, they both release a lot of energy except in different amounts and different timespans while a rocket motor is also directed whereas a nuke would waste quite a bit of energy into all other directions except where the comet is. That's why I said fire a barrage of big nuclear warheads with enough distance that they won't destroy one another. That's just until we have a tractor beam ready. :laugh4:

Concerning early detection, how about some kind of radar? I think electromagnetic waves also expand in space or else we couldn't communicate with mars buggies so it should be possible to introduce some radar sattelites which scan a big area around our planet for incoming objects, telescopes only focus on a certain area after all and seem quite badly suited for a scanning task, they could then be used to specifically examine potential threats found by the scanning satellites.
*goes off to plan earth defenses*

[Viking]

I am no scientist but why are nukes considered the option #1 in these hypothetical questions?

NASA did a high velocity impact test on the comet Tempel 1 with a 770 lb probe. The crater was about 100m wide and 30m deep.
I mean, a 350 kg object with instruments made a huge crater. What would a dense object of several tons do to an asteroid? Multiply it with several such objects and higher velocities, you could pulverise any rock floating in space.
One scientist said (http://web.archive.org/web/20070521082005/http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/11/08/marinabai.shtml): "the change to the orbit of the comet after the collision was only about 10 cm”.

If you are going to land on such a space object why plant nuclear bombs? Why not fasten rockets to steer the asteroid away from a colliding course?
In fact, China revealed their plan (http://web.archive.org/web/20050830003558/http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1163067.cms)to do just such a thing a few days after NASA’s success with Deep Impact.


A nuclear bomb would, though, be much more effective. A potential use of a nuclear bomb, as I found in Kukri's link, is to use the nuclear warhead as a diverting force rather than attempting to blow up the asteroid. The radiation from a nuclear explosion near an asteroid deal alot of momentum to it.



Yes, you're right, but in case of the rockets it may be problematic if it's rotating around itself and you may need a lot of calculations to do it right.
I think a nuclear warhead is almost the same as igniting a pretty strong rocket for a split second, they both release a lot of energy except in different amounts and different timespans while a rocket motor is also directed whereas a nuke would waste quite a bit of energy into all other directions except where the comet is. That's why I said fire a barrage of big nuclear warheads with enough distance that they won't destroy one another. That's just until we have a tractor beam ready. :laugh4:

Concerning early detection, how about some kind of radar? I think electromagnetic waves also expand in space or else we couldn't communicate with mars buggies so it should be possible to introduce some radar sattelites which scan a big area around our planet for incoming objects, telescopes only focus on a certain area after all and seem quite badly suited for a scanning task, they could then be used to specifically examine potential threats found by the scanning satellites.
*goes off to plan earth defenses*


Actually the telescopes are doing an excellent job finding asteroids. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid#Asteroids_in_the_solar_system) almost 400 000 asteroids have been discovered so far. Sunwards it would make sense using a radar considering that the Sun will outshine any asteroid; though such a radar would have to be quite powerful in order to discover these tiny objects. What we need is more and bigger telescopes for the task.

[Husar]

I hope by radiation you mean the kinetic shockwave of the bomb, other than cause a cancer in the asteroid I don't really the see the radiation affecting it.

Concerning telescopes, I'd think they're more expensive in the long run than a few solar-operated radars which may use networking and would work almost automatic. I'm not sure about the capabilities of telescopes but those also need quite a lot of space down here, clustering the planet with them doesn't sound all that good to me.

[Vladimir]

I hope by radiation you mean the kinetic shockwave of the bomb, other than cause a cancer in the asteroid I don't really the see the radiation affecting it.

Concerning telescopes, I'd think they're more expensive in the long run than a few solar-operated radars which may use networking and would work almost automatic. I'm not sure about the capabilities of telescopes but those also need quite a lot of space down here, clustering the planet with them doesn't sound all that good to me.

The high energy particles hitting it should be the key. The problem with a loosely packed asteroid is the same problem the German air force had at Dunkirk, or close. The sand would absorb a lot of the explosive energy of the bomb. A solid object would crack but not a loosely packed one would react like a sponge.

[Ironside]

The high energy particles hitting it should be the key. The problem with a loosely packed asteroid is the same problem the German air force had at Dunkirk, or close. The sand would absorb a lot of the explosive energy of the bomb. A solid object would crack but not a loosely packed one would react like a sponge.

But high energy particles got the exact same problems with absorbing (unless you suggest super strong ion cannons or something). And as mentioned, nukes are there to work as very energy intense objects, where the explosion is intended to move the asteriod's orbit.

[CountArach]

Academics want Pope's uni visit scrapped over Galileo remark (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/15/2139155.htm?section=justin)

This may interest some of you. Basically the Pope made a comment supporting Gallileo's trial and conviction for Heresy and now Academics are urging the leaders of a Univeristy to cancel his visit. Now what I am interested in is why the pope made the comment in the first place and in what circumstances. If someone could inform me of that it would be greatly appreciated.

[Husar]

The high energy particles hitting it should be the key. The problem with a loosely packed asteroid is the same problem the German air force had at Dunkirk, or close. The sand would absorb a lot of the explosive energy of the bomb. A solid object would crack but not a loosely packed one would react like a sponge.
Have you ever been thrown against the wall by an X-ray?
If not then why do you think a few itsy bitsy highspeed particles from a nuclear bomb would move something several thousand times your weight around? :inquisitive:
If it's a lot of loose mass I'd suggest a big vacuum cleaner anyway.

[Viking]

I hope by radiation you mean the kinetic shockwave of the bomb, other than cause a cancer in the asteroid I don't really the see the radiation affecting it.

Concerning telescopes, I'd think they're more expensive in the long run than a few solar-operated radars which may use networking and would work almost automatic. I'm not sure about the capabilities of telescopes but those also need quite a lot of space down here, clustering the planet with them doesn't sound all that good to me.


Have you ever been thrown against the wall by an X-ray?
If not then why do you think a few itsy bitsy highspeed particles from a nuclear bomb would move something several thousand times your weight around?
If it's a lot of loose mass I'd suggest a big vacuum cleaner anyway.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8173791211944754735

30+ seconds into this video you can see how powerful the radiation is. The second shockwave in this video, at 48 seconds, is the one that will not come in space.

I've never ever seen anyone mentioning a radar when it comes to detecting asteroids, so I think you're way off there ~;).

Radiotelescopes need bigger space than in optical telescopes since the wavelenghts are longer; not to mention that they also need an instrument to send out the radio waves. We do use radars to track space junk however, a different sort of problem.

[Husar]

30+ seconds into this video you can see how powerful the radiation is.
Powerful enough to throw some dirt around if that is the radiation, but keep in mind that the stronger hydrogen bombs don't emit as much radiation as far as I'm aware. But even here it cannot even throw around a small car...


The second shockwave in this video, at 48 seconds, is the one that will not come in space.
That's what I asked myself, since there's only vacuum, where will all the energy go? :inquisitive:

[Viking]

Powerful enough to throw some dirt around if that is the radiation, but keep in mind that the stronger hydrogen bombs don't emit as much radiation as far as I'm aware. But even here it cannot even throw around a small car...


Then assume the cars was placed some distance away from the blast. Here on Earth there is much that can absorb the radiation.


That's what I asked myself, since there's only vacuum, where will all the energy go? :inquisitve:

Not as a physical shockwave anyway. ~;p

[Sigurd]

I don’t think nuclear bombs will do much good in vacuum space.
Three points to consider:

In the absence of an atmosphere, blast disappears completely.
Thermal radiation, as usually defined, also disappears. There is no longer any air for the blast wave to heat and much higher frequency radiation is emitted from the weapon itself.
In the absence of the atmosphere, nuclear radiation will suffer no physical attenuation and the only degradation in intensity will arise from reduction with distance. As a result the range of significant dosages will be many times greater than is the case at sea level.The explosion will be vastly insignificant compared to an explosion in an atmosphere.
Only the shrapnel from the actual bomb will have impact on any close objects to the detonation and what damage will alpha, beta and gamma rays do to an asteroid? I say insignificant.

Nuclear devices as a means to destroy or push large bodies in vacuum space is a fool’s idea. :beam:

[Viking]

In the absence of an atmosphere, blast disappears completely.
Thermal radiation, as usually defined, also disappears. There is no longer any air for the blast wave to heat and much higher frequency radiation is emitted from the weapon itself.
In the absence of the atmosphere, nuclear radiation will suffer no physical attenuation and the only degradation in intensity will arise from reduction with distance. As a result the range of significant dosages will be many times greater than is the case at sea level.


Most of the energy will now appear as radiation, until it hits the asteroid where it will turn into mechanical energy. Not saying that this sort of deflection would work or not; but anyway the nuclear explosion would release the same amount of energy in space as here on Earth.

Bah, we need thorough scientific reports on the issue as well as testing out theory. The Don Quijote (http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/NEO/SEMZRZNVGJE_0.html) mission could help us here, but I have been unable to find any new updates about it. :inquisitive:

[Husar]

Most of the energy will now appear as radiation, until it hits the asteroid where it will turn into mechanical energy. Not saying that this sort of deflection would work or not; but anyway the nuclear explosion would release the same amount of energy in space as here on Earth.
:yes:

Although if the energy is released as gamma rays , less of it may actually hit the meteorite but then again the things are pretty thick, aren't they?

[Sigurd]

Most of the energy will now appear as radiation, until it hits the asteroid where it will turn into mechanical energy. Not saying that this sort of deflection would work or not; but anyway the nuclear explosion would release the same amount of energy in space as here on Earth.


I still don’t buy it.
I mean, which of the different radiation (roentgens) types from a nuclear bomb can affect a piece of rock floating in space?

EMP will do no damage to or effect rock.
Thermal radiation is non-existent.
Radio waves?
UV radiation ?
X-rays?
Alpha rays?
Beta?
Gamma?

You say energy will transform into kinetic energy? Wouldn’t most of the energy from a nuclear detonation be transformed to light? … I doubt you can move a piece of rock with the beam of a flashlight.

[Gregoshi]

… I doubt you can move a piece of rock with the beam of a flashlight.
It doesn't apply in this particular case, but...

Sigurd, ever hear of the concept of solar sailing?
From the Planetary Society web page: link (http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/solar_sailing/)



A solar sail is a spacecraft without an engine, sped along its way by the direct pressure of light particles from the Sun. The particles, known as photons, reflect off the spacecraft's giant mirror-like sails, pushing the craft forward. Because a solar sail carries no fuel, and in principle can keep accelerating over almost unlimited distances, it is the only technology known today that could one day take us to the stars.

[Husar]

I still don’t buy it.
I mean, which of the different radiation (roentgens) types from a nuclear bomb can affect a piece of rock floating in space?
Alpha, beta and gamma rays with alpha having the biggest impact I'd say.



Radio waves? No, if I'm not mistaken they're the same as EMP only far less powerful
UV radiation ? UV radiation = lightwaves = photons with a different frequency than gamma rays and yes, they could, given enough intensity and kinetic energy, they burn your skin by impacting it IIRC.
X-rays? similar to UV radiation, different frequency again
Alpha rays? definitely, they have more or less unlimited range in space and consist of two neutrons and two protons, we're talking about maybe trillions or more of them hitting the asteroid with a whole lot of kinetic energy, they're also very lethal to humans btw
Beta? probably, lighter than Alpha rays, consist of one electron, add a lot of kinetic energy and you get an electron cannon ~;)
Gamma? same as UV and X-Ray although you only call them gamma rays when they come from the core of an atom

Been a while since I had physics, if I got anything wrong in the quote, feel free to correct me.
By the way, radio waves aare electromagnetic waves, they only affect bipole molecules like water and I think metals, basically what you have in a microwave oven, only different frequencies and intensities, same should be true for EMP. If you have a big ice meteorite, hitting it with a big microwave beam would probably just make it rain down here. ~D


You say energy will transform into kinetic energy? Wouldn’t most of the energy from a nuclear detonation be transformed to light? … I doubt you can move a piece of rock with the beam of a flashlight.
light moves at the speed of light, it couldn't do that without kinetic energy, or could it? UV radiation for example has so much energy that it can ionise atoms etc which is why it isn't healthy for you, basically most of the gamma, beta and alpha rays do that as well, the more energy they have, the more they can destroy and according to wiki, UV is one of the weakest ionising forms of radiation. Visible light, especially from a flashlight does not have enough energy to do that, it usually fails already after a few meters when it's foggy. A laser for example would be a high-intensity lightsource and if strong enough it burns right through a lot of things as you may know which is because they can be focused onto a single point so you get a whole lot of photons impacting in the same place, destroying matter. A flashlight spreads the light in a cone, that's why it seems to become darker at a distance, because the amount of photons per square inch becomes less added to the fact that some photons hit particles in the air before getting there.
You also get that effect here on earth every summer or winter or in other words, the spread effect of sunrays when the sun shines onto your place at a very low angle is why it's colder then, if it shines at your place in a 90° angle, you get more intensity and thus it's hotter down here.

To come back to the topic, the intensity of the explosion of a nuke and the fact that all it's energy would go into all these radiation particles(whereas down here, the air would absorb a lot of the energy by heating up and transporting it away in the shockwave) so the radiation should have the same strenght as the radiation, shockwave and heat here on earth have combined due to the law of the conservation of energy, I think. :sweatdrop:

As before, anyone who knows better, correct me. ~:)

[Viking]

I still don’t buy it.
I mean, which of the different radiation (roentgens) types from a nuclear bomb can affect a piece of rock floating in space?

EMP will do no damage to or effect rock.
Thermal radiation is non-existent.
Radio waves?
UV radiation ?
X-rays?
Alpha rays?
Beta?
Gamma?

You say energy will transform into kinetic energy? Wouldn’t most of the energy from a nuclear detonation be transformed to light? … I doubt you can move a piece of rock with the beam of a flashlight.

Thermal radiation is exists in space, yes; also known as infrared light

All sort of electromagnetic radiation will give the asteroid a push (as a side note, we have the Yarkovsky effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarkovsky_effect) caused by the Sun and that works over time, pushing small astronomical bodies). The (electromagnetic) radiation will also cause vast surface areas to melt; the vaporized regolith will work as a thrusting force in addition to the push that the radiation delivers.



To come back to the topic, the intensity of the explosion of a nuke and the fact that all it's energy would go into all these radiation particles(whereas down here, the air would absorb a lot of the energy by heating up and transporting it away in the shockwave) so the radiation should have the same strenght as the radiation, shockwave and heat here on earth have combined due to the law of the conservation of energy, I think. :sweatdrop:

Exatcly. Just as on Earth, the energy will go in all directions; though at an asteroid, only one is favourable.

[Viking]

Old news, but thought I'd post it anyway; the fascinating radar images from the Saturnian moon Titan:



https://img167.imageshack.us/img167/6882/lakessmallxy5.jpg

Photojournal (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/?IDNumber=PIA10008) (caption)

The colours are false. Dark colour indicates areas that poorly reflect the radar waves; likewise bright colours indicates areas that better reflects the radar waves from Cassini. The lakes are thought to consist of liquid hydrocarbons; the lake at right is greater than Lake Superior on the borders of the US/Canada.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

So basically if we can build a giant rail gun on Titan and set up a base there we could fire fuel back to Earth and keep our oil addiction going for hundreds of years?

Let's start shelling out the big bucks for space research guys, it's our only way out of green technology!

[Viking]

Nah, hydrocarbons makes up a great range of different substances; and here we're tallking about methane (CH4) and ethane (C2H6). ~;)

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Nah, hydrocarbons makes up a great range of different substances; and here we're tallking about methane (CH4) and ethane (C2H6). ~;)

Both methane and ethane can be used as fuels as far as I know.

Just check out Cow Power, it runs off of natural methane!

[Viking]

Both methane and ethane can be used as fuels as far as I know.

Just check out Cow Power, it runs off of natural methane!


Yeah, but the cars would need a few upgrades before we could start utilizing it. ~;p

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Yeah, but the cars would need a few upgrades before we could start utilizing it. ~;p

I never said anything about cars. The future lies in electric cars run by Martian methane powered power plants!!!

[Viking]

Avalenche...on Mars ~:eek:


A NASA spacecraft has taken the first-ever image of an avalanche in action near Mars' north pole.


The High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the photograph Feb. 19. The image, released today, shows tan clouds billowing away from the foot of a towering slope, where ice and dust have just cascaded down.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080303-mars-avalanche.html

https://img221.imageshack.us/img221/3405/080303marsavalanche02wz8.jpg
high res. version http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/gallery/press/20080303a/PSP_007338_2640_RGB1.jpg








Just to show how powerful cameras the space probes carries today. This is a photograph of the Earth and the Moon talke by a Martian space probe from Mars orbit. It is the same camera that took the picture above.
https://img221.imageshack.us/img221/5402/pia10244pp6.jpg

[Fragony]

lol so true

http://www.trouw.nl/redactie/spotprent/donderdag500.gif

'to all muslims in the world, there is an extremily insulting movie comming your way, I repeat'

Eat that Balkenende :laugh4: