[HN Gopher] Simulate Asteroid Impacts on Earth
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Simulate Asteroid Impacts on Earth
 
Author : faebi
Score  : 139 points
Date   : 2022-12-05 19:30 UTC (3 hours ago)
 
web link (neal.fun)
w3m dump (neal.fun)
 
| mikewarot wrote:
| It's truly amazing how much stuff you can just dump safely in the
| middle of Lake Michigan. Of course... there's no calculation of
| the Seiche it would induce.
 
  | Fomite wrote:
  | This was my experiment too - "What if it hits one of the great
  | lakes?"
 
    | adabyron wrote:
    | They become even more extraordinarily great lakes!
    | 
    | Some believe this has already happened.
    | 
    | https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2019/12/great-lakes-
    | meteorites...
 
| newaccount2021 wrote:
 
| gwill wrote:
| pretty neat. I wish it would tell you an approximate terminal
| velocity for the mass of your asteroid.
 
  | djexjms wrote:
  | Third field down after simulating the impact.
 
  | jamesmaniscalco wrote:
  | There is a nice calculator for terminal velocity of a sphere in
  | air here:
  | 
  | http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/airfri2.html
  | 
  | That being said, I'm not sure how relevant terminal velocity is
  | for anything but the smallest/slowest ends of the parameters of
  | this app. For an asteroid going 38,000 mph (default speed on
  | linked page), drag just doesn't play a big part - the asteroid
  | passes through the atmosphere in ~5 seconds, not enough time
  | for it to slow down significantly.
 
| twothamendment wrote:
| It would be cool if it could factor in mountains - but I get why
| that is not an easy task. Fun isn't the best word to describe
| this page - but it was!
 
  | jvanderbot wrote:
  | It's conceptually simple : use visibility based on viewshed for
  | heat and direct blast concussion. Secondary effects (wind)
  | would be harder.
  | 
  | But it's _computationally_ extremely difficult, as you say.
 
    | TeMPOraL wrote:
    | Well, you could cheat.
    | 
    | There's so much cheap GPU compute used for mining shitcoins
    | and training glorified Markov chains on Reddit dumps, surely
    | someone could spare a few racks to run some CFD on a detailed
    | GIS model of our planet, to create lookup tables that would
    | allow everyone to cheaply simulate all kinds of fun events,
    | such as nuclear detonations, asteroid impacts, "rods of god",
    | relativistic kill vehicles, supervolcano eruptions, etc.
    | anywhere on the planet, at the push of a button.
    | 
    | The social value of this would be immense - even if you and
    | me never used those precomputed LUTs for anything, they would
    | surely help Randall Munroe or Kurzgesagt or others answer
    | _even more_ high-energy  "what-if" questions with even
    | greater accuracy!
 
| themarbz wrote:
| Cool! Some info on tidal waves for water hits would be even
| cooler
 
| [deleted]
 
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Definitely more colorful than Nukemap. Would love to see
| something other than a simple circle for the various radii-
| surely the impact angle and local geography would shape the
| blast, no?
| 
| (I realize that is a very hard problem to accurately model.)
 
| aaroninsf wrote:
|  this is fun, I should show it to the kids
|  hmm  ... 
| 
| The kids have enough lingering anxiety from the pandemic I think
 
| donatj wrote:
| I've always had a weird fear whenever I was in Duluth that Lake
| Superior would get hit by an Asteroid. The lake itself seemed
| like a much bigger and more likely target.
| 
| A couple people have commented as much, but I wish this took
| water into account.
 
| agilob wrote:
| Speed is limited to 100km/s, our Voyager 1 is going 17 km/s
| doesn't sound so fast.
 
| zppln wrote:
| _An impact this size happens on average every 25,000 years_
| 
| A comet on default settings. T-that can't be right, r-right?
 
  | TeMPOraL wrote:
  | Don't worry, we're overdue a climate-altering / mass-
  | extinction-triggering supervolcano eruption anyway.
 
    | maxbond wrote:
    | I'm sure you know this, but just to point out, we're no more
    | "overdue" for a supervolcano because it's been longer than
    | average since an eruption than a gambler is "due" to win
    | because they've pulled the arm on their slot machine enough
    | times. (Though iirc some volcanoes are periodic. But unless
    | I'm quite mistaken, supervolcanoes aren't periodic globally.)
 
      | bee_rider wrote:
      | Is there really no memory in this process? I imagine to
      | some extent, some tensions would be building up or
      | something like that.
 
        | maxbond wrote:
        | I don't feel qualified to say there is no "memory", if I
        | make claims any stronger than I've made already I'll be
        | out of my depth, but see the information below for
        | instance:
        | 
        | > Most volcanic systems that have a supereruption do not
        | have them multiple times. When supereruptions do occur
        | more than once in a volcanic system, they are not evenly
        | spaced in time.
        | 
        | https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/yellowstone-overdue-eruption-
        | when-...
        | 
        | I think these are just very complex systems with many
        | different factors, like the kind of rock they're under,
        | what's going on with the continental plate at that time,
        | etc. We don't have a good understanding of what's
        | happening in the mantle, which is especially relevant for
        | hotspot volcanoes like Yellowstone that are fed from the
        | mantle (note that this is not how all supervolcanoes
        | work).
        | 
        | Allow me to leave you with an awesome animation of the
        | formation of a very different supervolcano:
        | https://youtu.be/sx3_WJHAERc
 
    | go_elmo wrote:
    | no need to need luck - we'll extinct ourselves with co2 quite
    | soon, gg
 
  | swagasaurus-rex wrote:
  | There's currently controversial archaeological evidence for a
  | younger dryas (12,900 years ago) meteorite impact which caused
  | mass global cooling, though thats one of several theories.
  | 
  | There's also speculation and some small amount of material
  | evidence that a meteorite airburst the middle east/levant[1]
  | maybe leading to myths of cataclysm like Sodom.
  | 
  | The 1908 blast at Tunguska in Siberia is now widely regarded as
  | a result of a cosmic airbust.
  | 
  | There seems to be a growing body of evidence that large, city-
  | destroying asteroids are actually quite frequent in geological
  | terms. The odds of hitting an actual city are low, but I don't
  | like those odds
  | 
  | [1] https://www.livescience.com/64179-ancient-cosmic-airburst-
  | mi...
 
| lucb1e wrote:
| Is it just the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon ("a cognitive bias in
| which, after noticing something for the first time, there is a
| tendency to notice it more often") or do asteroid impact related
| things always go for Manhattan? I open this map and, bam, there's
| a map zoomed right onto Manhattan and a "select impact location"
| prompt.
 
  | rossdavidh wrote:
  | Well, they go for Manhattan first, but then the second one is
  | usually Berlin.
 
    | defrost wrote:
    | Typically true for those from a Leonard Shower.
 
  | jimbokun wrote:
  | Or sometimes Tokyo.
 
    | lucb1e wrote:
    | They've already got earthquakes and tsunamis, can Manhattan
    | not have the asteroids? (Says the European, dodging all
    | natural disasters)
 
  | dwringer wrote:
  | I think the name itself is a bit of a meme for blast radius
  | calculations and the like.
 
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Well, that was fun
 
| theylovezmw wrote:
| Lots of fun, Neal's work is always very impressive - not only on
| the technical implementation level, but the creativity as well.
 
| sisteczko wrote:
| Too bad not everyone thinks in terms of miles, feet nor furlongs.
| I suggest you add an option for a metric system in your spare
| time. Otherwise great illustrative site!
 
| svnpenn wrote:
| this only goes up to one mile. Chicxulub was _six miles_.
 
| IceHegel wrote:
| Edward Teller, the inventor of the hydrogen bomb and longtime
| head of Los Alamos National Laboratory, believed it was possible
| and even a good idea to place 1 gigaton yield warheads on orbital
| platforms for asteroid defense.
| 
| It might seem outlandish to us, but then again, so would a
| hydrogen bomb.
 
| brookst wrote:
| Very cool. After trying numerous combinations of composition,
| velocity, and diameter... my takeaway is that most asteroids 70
| feet or bigger would do substantial damage at 1 Hacker Way, Menlo
| Park, CA.
 
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| How many people tagged NYC with an asteroid? Just wondering.
 
  | mrlonglong wrote:
  | Trump at his place in Florida. Felt quite satisfying.
 
    | bee_rider wrote:
    | Oh the conspiracy theories that would cause.
 
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Which is worse, a mile wide fireball in the sky or a mile wide
| impact? Seems all bad to me.
 
| faebi wrote:
| I'm not very good in successful HN titles, therefore I let
| ChatGPT write that one for me with this prompt:
| 
|  _Rewrite the following twitter message as a hackernews title. It
| should be as successfull as possible and attract many readers_
| 
|  _Original Tweet: New page! Make your own asteroid and launch it
| at Earth to see the effects._
 
  | EarthLaunch wrote:
  | I want this for git commit messages.
 
    | TacticalCoder wrote:
    | I tried it just for fun yesterday: transforming Git commit
    | message whose subject are too long and that are not in the
    | imperative tense into short title using the imperative tense.
    | 
    | For this kind of thing it mostly works.
 
      | e12e wrote:
      | Did you try to post the patch and ask for a commit message?
 
  | throwaway742 wrote:
  | What was your prompt for this comment?
 
    | faebi wrote:
    | I didn't think about going that far, but yes, that would have
    | been the way to go.
 
  | kulahan wrote:
  | This is very cool, I can't wait until this is freely available.
  | I wanna run it locally and screw around with it!
 
  | panosfilianos wrote:
  | This is simply insane at this point.
 
    | TeMPOraL wrote:
    | More than, that, if "Simulate Asteroid Impacts on Earth" is
    | really what ChatGPT came up with, then color me impressed -
    | it has done its job _perfectly_.
 
| fitzroy wrote:
| I'm confused. A 100 ft asteroid that explodes 2.2 miles in the
| air seems to result in far more deaths from a 0.6 mile wide
| fireball compared to a 200ft asteroid that would hit the ground
| in the same location (Fort Lauderdale, FL).
| 
| 100ft = 211,172 deaths
| 
| Is this correct? https://imgur.com/a/Elst6Q3
 
| boilerupnc wrote:
| Where's my resulting tsunami info? ;-)
 
  | omoikane wrote:
  | Came here to ask the same question :) I picked the impact
  | location to be some ocean spot and it didn't kill anyone, I am
  | not sure if that's optimistic.
 
    | JoshGlazebrook wrote:
    | Same. I just rewatched deep impact recently too so I picked
    | somewhere off the east coast.
 
| sholladay wrote:
| Why do we enjoy simulating our own destruction so much?
| 
| I was seeing how big/fast an asteroid that hits New York would
| have to be to hurt me in Boston. Turns out it would have to be
| larger than I thought.
| 
| Would be nice to be able to click a place on the map and see how
| survivable that location is.
 
  | TeMPOraL wrote:
  | > _I was seeing how big /fast an asteroid that hits New York
  | would have to be to hurt me in Boston. Turns out it would have
  | to be larger than I thought._
  | 
  | Did the same on my area with that infamous nuclear bomb
  | simulator/map. Some of the historical warheads seem
  | surprisingly weak relative to modern city sizes. That said, in
  | both nuclear and asteroid impact scenarios, do consider that,
  | while you may be out of range of the thermal and pressure
  | waves, you might still be in range of "extreme disruption
  | caused by survivors closer to the blast moving outwards,
  | emergency services moving inwards, and the economy and social
  | order going to shitters as the country deals with what
  | happened" wave.
 
    | frobolo wrote:
    | I can only recommend Threads (1984) if you want a glimpse
    | into just how utterly bleak post-apocalyptic life might be.
    | 
    | https://archive.org/details/threads_202007
 
| skilled wrote:
| I think this needs to be optimized for impacts that hit water and
| the effects _that_ would have, because right now it doesn 't do
| that so it feels a bit generic.
 
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(page generated 2022-12-05 23:00 UTC)