JCCC EwtS 091024 Cloudy

Asteroids, Black Swans, Global Catastrophic Risks, and How to Save Civilization (cloudy night version) JCCC Science Center Evening with the Stars Saturday 24 October 2009

Agenda
Asteroids
Basics – What/Where/How Many
Impacts You’ve Heard Of
Craters You Can Visit
Impacts You Haven’t Heard Of
Black Swans
Global Catastrophic Risks

Agenda (cont’d)
How to Save Civilization
Think Globally
Act Locally
2008 TC3
Astronomical Society of Kansas City

What Are Asteroids?
Small solar system bodies that aren’t comets or meteoroids.
The formerly largest asteroid, 1 Ceres, is now classified as a dwarf planet .
Discovered 1 January 1801 by Giuseppi Piazzi in Palermo, Sicily
IAU members gathered at the 2006 General Assembly agreed that a “planet” is defined as a celestial body that
(a) is in orbit around the Sun
(b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and
(c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
(source: http://www.iau.org/public_press/news/release/iau0603/)

Where Are Asteroids? (source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/InnerSolarSystem-en.png)

But Where Are They Right Now? (source: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=1&orb=1#top)

Special Classifications for NEOs – Amors (source: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=1221&orb=1#top ; see also http ://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Amors.html )

Special Classifications for NEOs – Apollos (source: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=1862&orb=1#top ; see also http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Apollos.html )

Special Classifications for NEOs – Atens (source: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2062&orb=1#top ; see also http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Atens.html )

How Many Asteroids Are There? (source: http://www.wwu.edu/depts/skywise/a101_asteroids.html, corrected) 5.2 × 10 5 1,000,000 1 7.9 × 10 5 96,000 2.5 1.2 × 10 6 18,000 5 1.7 × 10 6 3,200 10 4.1 × 10 6 500 25 8.5 × 10 6 130 50 2.6 × 10 7 50 100 5.5 × 10 7 13 200 3.4 × 10 7 1 400 4.5 × 10 8 1 950 tot vol km 3 # dia (km)

Power-Law Distribution (source: http://www.sdss.org/news/releases/20010605.edr.img9.html) n ~ D -2.3 * http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/ 10 tonnes TNT 8,000,000 1 m 23 kT 40,000 10 m 8.3 MT 200 100 m 5.4 × 10 4 MT 1 1 km impact energy* # diameter

Historical Impacts You’ve Heard Of Barringer 49 ± 3 ka Chicxulub 64.98 ± 0.05 Ma

Historical Impacts You’ve Heard Of Tunguska 6/30/1908

Craters You Can Visit (source: www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/NorthAmerica.html)
Decaturville, MO
9 miles south of Camdenton on MO-5
6 km dia
< 300 Ma
Odessa, TX
I-20 at exit 108
160 m dia
< 50 k a
Sierra Madera, TX
18 miles south of Ft Stockton on US-385
13 km dia
< 100 Ma

Weaubleau–Osceola Structure (source: Dr Kevin Evans, Missouri State University [former SMSU])
N 37°59’, W 93°38’ (possibly one of series of impacts along 38 th parallel, including Decaturville)
19 km dia (4 th largest in US and one of 50 largest on Earth)
340 Ma (middle Mississippian Period)
impactor diameter ~370 m
ASKC SME is David Neuenschwander

Historical Impacts You Haven’t Heard Of
“ Clovis Comet” 12.9 ka (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0706977104v1)
Tunguska-like event, but much larger, over northeastern North America
partially destabilized Laurentide Ice Sheet, triggering Younger Dryas cooling; shockwave, thermal pulse, “extensive biomass burning”
at least 17 species of megafauna went extinct
Clovis culture disappeared; possible death of 2/3 of North American population

Tasman Sea, ~1500 AD (http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040306/bob8.asp)
tsunami left deposits 130 m above sea level in eastern Australia, 150-220 m above sea level on Stewart Island/Rakiura, NZ
20 km dia, 150 m deep seafloor crater SW of NZ
1-km-wide asteroid impact

Great Chicago Fire, 10/8/1871 (http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/CDReadyMPDC04_865/PV2004_1419.pdf)
fragments of Comet 3D/Biela
also Peshtigo Fire (4,850 km², 1,200-2,500 deaths) and Port Huron Fire (similar size, 50 deaths)
Historical Impacts You Haven’t Heard Of http://www.cedu.niu.edu/~henning/ChicagoFireWebQuest/fire2.jpg http://www.angelfire.com/mi2/gfmeteor/images/peshtigo1871.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/CometBiela.jpg

Kusaie (Kosrae) , 1 Feb 1994 (“Satellites Detect Record Meteor,” Sky & Telescope , June 1994)
rocky body 15 meters in diameter traveling 15 km sec -1
110-kT explosion at 20 km altitude; visual magnitude -25
pinpointed by 6 early-warning satellites to 164.1°E, 2.7°N; also seen by two fishermen
events this size occur about once per decade somewhere on Earth
Most NEOs produce airbursts
volatile cometary material evaporates
asteroids/meteoroids are often “rubble piles”
Apollo asteroid 25143 Itokawa
(from Hayabusa probe)
(http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/australia/oceania_ref_2007.pdf)

Chicago, 26 March 2003 (source: http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/04/040414.parkforest.shtml)
estimated mass 900 kg; velocity 18 km sec -1
fireball visible from Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri
hundreds of fragments recovered from Chicago’s south suburbs
K E = ½ mv 2 indicates 36,000 kg TNT equivalent

Historical Impacts You Haven’t Heard Of BBC headline,19 December 2004: “ Jakarta shaken by ‘meteor blast’”
occurred during a terror alert and heightened security (“Operation Candle”)
audible 60 km away (source: Townsville [Australia] Bulletin/Sun , URL not available)
(source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4108697.stm)

Historical Impacts You Haven’t Heard Of http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/52624256.html Photograph by Miguel Carrasco/La Razon/Reuters
Carangas, Peru, 16 September 2007 (source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070921-meteor-peru.html)
crater 13 meters across, 3 meters deep
ejecta thrown 250 meters

This Month’s Near-Miss (source: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/)
asteroid 2009 TU
flew by at 0.002 AU = 0.8 LD shortly before 7 PM CDT on Thu 8 Oct
H = +27.3; M v = +13.8; D ≈ 9.1–20m; v = 15.25 km sec -1
airburst energy would have been ~300 kT (source: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/)

This Month’s Near-Miss (source: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2009%20TU;orb=1)

Effects on Human History
mass extinctions
North American charismatic megafauna
North American native culture/population
Younger Dryas origin of diabetes?

The Black Swan
definition
the Fourth Quadrant
complexity of failure
geopolitical risk

The Black Swan
Definition: “… a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations.”
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory)
Short version:
low-probability, high-effect events

The Fourth Quadrant (adapted from http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/taleb08/taleb08_index.html) thick-tailed (power law) probability structure thin-tailed (Gaussian) probability structure application domain Quadrant 2 quite robust to Black Swans Quadrant 1 extremely robust to Black Swans simple (yes/no) payoffs Quadrant 4 LIMITS OF STATISTICS ; extreme fragility to Black Swans Quadrant 3 quite robust to Black Swans complex (magnitude of effect) payoffs

The Complexity of Failure http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/workingpapers/00-12-062.pdf http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/home/CAIB_Vol1.html

The Fourth Quadrant in Action (source: http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/86785/) http://tipstrategies.com/archive/geography-of-jobs/

Geopolitical Risk , or The Meaning of It All (with posthumous apologies to Richard Feynman)
Asteroid size distribution and composition combine with terrestrial realities such that:
rare larger impacts mean frequent smaller impacts
smaller impact ranges are in the tens of kilotons and are usually airbursts, but …
so are nuclear weapons, and the explosions look exactly the same, in a world of …
“ hostile capabilit[ies] among various actors with whom we have conflicting interests” (source: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2008/04/iran_war_drums_beating/)

Global Catastrophic Risk: Taxonomy/Organization Nature Unintended Consequences Hostile Acts

Global Catastrophic Risk: Observation Selection Effects (modified from Global Catastrophic Risks , Table 6.1, page 125) Beware of anthropic overconfidence bias! Distribution of near-Earth objects and Earth-crossing comets A Priori Distribution Distribution of impact craters, shock glasses, and so on Empirical ( A Posteriori ) Distribution

Global Catastrophic Risk: Observation Selection Effects Human history affected : North American survivors, diabetics, etc Distribution of impact craters, shock glasses, and so on Empirical ( A Posteriori ) Distribution Human history ended ? Distribution of near-Earth objects and Earth-crossing comets A Priori Distribution

How to Save Civilization
Think Globally
detection
prediction
mitigation
Act Locally
Powell Observatory
asteroid imaging
orbit refinement
asteroid discovery

How to Save Civilization: what not to do “ We should act incrementally as prudent risk minimizers and pursue any effective no-regrets options. We do not have to wait for the formulation and acceptance of grand strategies, for the emergence of global consensual understanding, or for the universal adoption of more rational approaches.”

Detection
Automated searches - telescopes in 0.5-1 m size range w/CCD cameras:
Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) telescope at Socorro, NM
Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) telescope at Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii
Spacewatch telescope at Kitt Peak
Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search (LONEOS) telescope at Flagstaff
Catalina Sky Survey 3 telescopes (2 in Tucson, 1 in Australia)
Japanese Spaceguard Association (JSGA) telescope in Japan
Asiago DLR Asteroid Survey (ADAS) telescope in Italy

Mitigation – Torino Scale (source: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/torino_scale.html) 8 – 10 red zone certain collisions 5 – 7 orange zone threatening 2 – 4 yellow zone meriting attention by astronomers 1 green zone normal 0 white zone no hazard

Powell Observatory Lewis-Young Park, Louisburg, KS

Powell Observatory 30” Ruisinger Telescope
Newtonian Reflector
diameter of aluminized area of mirror = 737 mm
focal length = 3760 mm (f/5.1)
magnifications 68x – 538x depending on eyepiece
details 500’ across on Moon
Light grasp = 11,000 × human eye
limiting visual magnitude = +17
20 times fainter than Pluto
> 100,000,000 stars; thousands of galaxies
Sun at 8,000 light-years
activates cone cells in retina – color vision

ASKC Astro Imaging Center Powell Observatory, Louisburg, KS; 38°38'46" N, 94°41'59"

Asteroid Imaging Camera

Asteroid 2004 QT24 PHA (Potentially Hazardous Asteroid); NEO (Near Earth Object) H = +18.27, diameter ~760 m, period 440 days Earth MOID = .0074617 AU = 1,116,300 km = 2.9 LD impact energy 23,400 MT (if solid rock at 17 km sec -1 ) (source: Dick Trentman, ASKC) (source: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2004%20QT24;orb=1)

Asteroid 2004 QT24 tracking images taken from Powell Observatory AIC, 4/22/2005 (source: Dick Trentman, ASKC)

Saving Civilization the ASKC Way
get nightly list of objects of high interest from MPC
take 10-100 images of that area of sky
digitally combine images into 3 groups, “blink” them
if something jumps, compare with known direction/speed
astrometric software does position and speed analysis
send data only (no images) back to MPC
they do computation to extend known segment of orbit
then rate object on Torino scale (0-10)
(source: Mitch Glaze, ASKC)

How is this saving civilization?
With our data, the Minor Planet Center …
Updates its library of all known NEOs’ orbital and physical data.
Correlates new discoveries with “lost” asteroids.
Provides accurate predictions of future NEO orbital motion.
Identifies PHAs (potentially hazardous asteroids).
Monitors changes to NEO orbits due to various influences.
Major accomplishments …
Starting in 2001, Powell became the second most productive observatory in the world (official designation IAUC/MPC #649) for NEO confirmation and tracking.
In 2004, Powell was specifically requested by the MPC to image “killer asteroid” 2004 MN4, later known as 99942 Apophis, because of the large aperture (30”) Ruisinger telescope and the quality of its previous work.
Currently, Powell has over 9,300 NEO observations, second only to the federally-funded Lowell Observatory.
(source: AJ Eaton, ASKC)

Also, We’ve Discovered A Few

… and here it is H = +13.3; M v = +16.9; diameter ~7.5 km; period 4 yrs 8 mos blackbody surface temperature 235 °K, –38 °C, –36 °F surface gravity ≈ 0.00035 g; 100 lb on Earth = 9/16 oz (source: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2000%20VG38;orb=1;cov=0;log=0#orb)

Monday, October 6, 2008 Humanity’s first successful prediction of an asteroid impact!
Asteroid 2008 TC3
discovered ~20 hours before impact by Catalina Sky Survey 1.5m telescope on Mt Lemmon, AZ
1-5 meters in diameter traveling 12.8 km sec -1 ; entered atmosphere at 19° angle
1-2 kT explosion at 20 km altitude; visual magnitude -13; observed by KLM aircraft crew 1,400 km away; detected by infrasound array in Kenya
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_TC3 and http://orbit.psi.edu/?q=node/22

Impact Images (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ELG_webcam_record_of_2008_TC3_frame_0005.png) 30 seconds before during 20 seconds after

Impact Animation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxa2PUluqVU

2008 TC3’s Final Orbit (source: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2008%20TC3;orb=1 )

2008 TC3’s Fragments Found! (source: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7237/full/nature07920.html )
exploded at 37 km altitude; no macroscopic fragments were expected to survive
but 47 meteorites found; total mass 3.95 kg
parent body named Almahata Sitta (“Station Six,” train station with eyewitnesses)
achondrite, a polymict ureilite, ultra-fine-grained and porous, with large carbonaceous grains
asteroid was F class, made of material so fragile it was not previously represented in meteorite collections
(source: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=asteroid-meteorite-sudan-fireball )

2008 TC3’s Fragments Found! (source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090328.html )

Harry Turtledove, Call Your Office (source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/reference_maps/pdf/physical_world.pdf ) actual path what if? what if? what if?

Join the ASKC!
What We Do
Monthly meetings with great speakers and knowledgeable club members
Operate Powell Observatory – training is always available
Operate Warkoczewski Observatory at UMKC (Friday nights)
Heart of America Star Party every year at dark-sky site near Butler, MO
What You Get to Do
Members can use the “Louisburg Community Telescope” (actually 2 telescopes, 16” and 12½” reflectors) any time
Become a “keyholder” at Powell Observatory – training is always available
Get access to members-only “dark-sky site”
Help refine asteroid orbits – save civilization!
http://www.askc.org/

JCCC EwtS 091024 Cloudy

by Jay Manifold on Oct 26, 2009

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JCCC EwtS 091024 Cloudy — Presentation Transcript