skunkworks

No, don't think so...It would take billions of dollars to build and would probably be ineffective.

tof

But you said "intelligent civilization".

tof

I think most such strikes were on the gas giants and their moons. We have the massive gravity wells of Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, and Jupiter to thank for grabbing most of the debris that tumbles our way, pulled by the gravity of the sun.

tof

Billions of dollars? We'll get the martians to pay for it.
Ineffective? Then we will build it higher!!!

jukngene

Meteor strike on the moon during the total eclipse: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...Q0MjM2MDUxOQS2

trapper

Those of you who are interested and have a lot of time on your hands might be interested in this tome:
HAZARDS Due to Comets & Asteroids
T. Gehrels, Editor [with 120 collaborating authors]
Copyright 1994, The University of Arizona Press

I got the book just after it was published. It’s about 1,200 pages long and took me about a year of non-continuous reading to wade through it.

The gist of it is:
1…We will eventually get hit [again] by a “big” asteroid or comet.
2…When and how “big” is unknown.
3…If it’s much bigger than 10 kilometers in diameter, life on earth as we know it, will pretty much be over.
4…Anything over 0.5 kilometers in diameter will cause massive destruction/extinctions depending where it hits [land or sea].
5…If we detect it early enough it can be deflected [notice NOT destroyed]
6…Detection may have to take place many years in advance so we can get to it and mitigate the hazard.
7…Destroying the object is NOT an option. You just create more smaller objects that could cause [in total] more destruction than one big object.
8…Changing the orbit is the only solution.
9…This must happen by either slowing down or speeding up the object in its orbit. This will cause a permanent change in the orbit. The means to do this exist but the best way to do this is up for debate.
10..Deflecting it perpendicular to its orbit [up, down, left, right] is not an option since the object would eventually return to its original path.

That was the thinking in 1994 and I don’t think much has changed.

Zippy

All y'all are killing me. Scoots, skunk, tof

tof

It's later than you think...

Over the last few years, astronomers had predicted an impact between our Milky Way and a much-larger neighboring galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy in four to eight billion years. Recent computer modeling has now revealed that the Milky Way may first collide with the Large Magellanic Cloud, a transition galaxy, in just two billion years. So don't buy any green bananas or multi-year magazine subscriptions.

The good news:The sun isn't expected to go supernova for 7 to 8 billion years, when its size will grow to engulf the earth. So if we survive the merger with the Large Magellanic Cloud, we will have plenty of time to stock up on sun screen.

engifineer

Clearly if you want to save the earth you need to work for Tesla... because saving the earth is done by doing more work with 7% less people to perform said work

https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/el...-of-tesla.html


lol