Japanese spacecraft fired cannonball into asteroid

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/20/japanese-spacecraft-fired-cann.html

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Never forget Chicxulub. They fired first.

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Great, now on top of all our other problems we’re going to start an interplanetary war.

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An asteroid like this would make a pretty good habitat. Its easy to tunnel in to, and it has plenty of accessible raw materials. You get protection from heat, radiation and meteors with relatively little effort.

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Its just payback for the times the Klilaks and Planet X’ians tried to destroy the Earth by controlling its giant monsters.

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So you don’t just cut them in half and count the rings?

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image

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I just fired off a canon ball in the mens room.

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Was it a seismic event?

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Artist’s impression:

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So they hit it with a 2kg copper cannonball? Not exactly photon torpedoes, but hey, baby steps, eh?

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If I had to guess which nation would be the first to shoot a gun at some space shit, Japan would not have been my first pick.

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Our 2KG copper cannonball technology is the best there is in space! Until you consider the collimated gamma ray beams some of those aliens have.

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Let’s hope they don’t encounter an Illithid Dreadnought.

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I would have guessed France.

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Need a mashup of:

  • Emperor Palpatine menacingly saying “Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!”
  • footage of the Japanese impactor.

 

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Serious question: do you think they calculated what effect that impact had on the asteroid’s orbit? I mean, a change in heading of a thousandth of a degree can have a large delta after a few million miles…

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And the recoil - how much thrust for how long to counteract? Or maybe they use this Newtonian event to chart a new course?

I am a little blown away by the fact that the rock is just loose aggregate. First IPA in 6 weeks is adding to the mind-blown part. Working from home is awesome. AWESOME.

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Hayabusa2 launch mass 609 kg
SCI mass 2.5kg == 0.0041 of Hayabusa2 mass
SCI speed 2km/s
Recoil speed = 2000*0.0041 = 8m/s
162173 Ryugu escape velocity = 0.24 m/s at 1000 metres from the center of the asteroid

So yeah its going to be pushed back at 30 times escape velocity at the absolute best (1000 metres is very low) and you need to fire rockets to get back into orbit.

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