NASA Plans to Land Man on Asteroid

NASA is planning to land an astronaut on an asteroid hurtling through space at more than 30,000 mph.That is a pretty good feat if they can pull it off. The asteroid NASA has in mind landing on is Apophis. The reason NASA is trying to pull off this feat is so they can learn how to push an asteroid out of the way of earth's orbit. You don't want to fire at an asteroid because then that asteroid breaks up and now you would have smaller asteroids to worry about.

If Apophis struck the earth at a 45 degree angle traveling at 10.56 miles/second it would cause a 3.16 x 102 MegaTons TNT explosion. The creator size would be 1.86 miles in diameter and 0.256 miles deep. Other than that not much damage done and the sound of the collision would be 52 decibels (loud as heavy traffic). By the way, I calculated all this impact information from the online Earth Impact Effects Program using this additional input data:

• Distance from Impact: 1000.00 km = 621.00 miles
• Projectile Diameter: 320.00 m = 1049.60 ft = 0.20 miles
• Projectile Density: 1000 kg/m3
• Target Density: 2500 kg/m3
• Target Type: Sedimentary Rock

You can go to that web site and enter your own values if you like.

Not only do we have to worry about asteroids but meteoroids too. Scientists think that a single meteorite killed off the dinosaurs. When a meteorite impacts the earth it creates a special kind of glass in the crater called diaplectic glass. This type of glass is produced without melting.