I love how the scientists basically said "well when the asteroid is a problem, we'll figure it out then" true procrastination in its finest

There is a place in "Apollo 13" where Jim Lovell realizes he can navigate in space without a computer. . . I don't have enough fonts today to make the WOW big enough. Just mind blowing how smart people can be when it really matters. Also, I remember reading about the SOHO gyroscopes failing and the solution was actually better than the original. Maybe it is not completely about procrastination.

Evacuating a city is probably the best idea, all the simple minded dummies usually stay behind, and the smart ones leave. lol

watch "don't look up" it shows exactly what and how it would happen without any exaggeration

@Maryj lol what? It's not a distraction. It's just that we already have a pretty good idea what to do about it, and there's several options.

An asteroid is scary, but what's even scarier to think about, is how there could potentially be so many other things like black holes, gamma ray bursts, supernovas, etc. that can potentially wipe out life as we know it.

@Bill A The vast majority of these are small enough that they aren't remotely dangerous, as well.

​@RobNoxiousPlays - I was just considering their sheer numbers, but of course knowing their estimated trajectory for the next 100 years lowers the change of a collision to near zero. The only problems is that several could get knocked out of their nice little orbit by some other external force.

@Bill A Pretty scary when imagined like that animation. Really not scary when you understand the scale and distances involved.

At 6:03 "So far we have detected and cataloged a million asteroids... 24,000 are near Earth objects. Pretty scary.

@James Beauchamp Destroy the planet...?

I have been to a meteorite crater in India, it’s overwhelmingly beautiful, but also a bit scary. As for the present, We should not blame (lack of) technology. More of the problem lies in less number of people working towards a common goal of science exploration, and making our planet better and safer. Maybe we should go under the ground, build a fallout shelter even while there is no threat.

@surya Sai Lonar lake (salty), Buldhana, Maharashtra

Yeah, underground cities could be built to withstand most asteroid-related catastrophes. Especially if installed with biospheres, like those planned for space exploration, which could use artificial lighting and waste recycling systems to grow plants which would in turn produce O2 and food, and remove CO2 from the air. Energy for the lighting and waste recycling systems could be produced with deep geothermal power plants, for instance.

Sounds like the plot of the city of ember

In india ? Where ?

I felt like the solutions he offered weren't super representative of the ideas we have today. I study astronomy and asteroids have ended being a point of focus for me, I even took an entire class about defending the Earth from asteroids. To start, the animations in this video didn't properly show where force would be applied to redirect an asteroid. Rather than pushing it away from the Earth we would push it in its orbit, either from the 'front' of direction of movement or from 'behind'. This either increases the asteroid's orbital velocity or decreases it, subsequently increasing its orbit or decreasing it. This would be used put the asteroid on a non-intersecting orbital path. We have a few ways of doing this. The first and most realistic is a kinetic impactor, this simply smashes a heavy impactor into the object. Kinetic impactors are feasible if we have about 1-2 years of preparation with a smaller object (max a couple hundred meters). Currently the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) from NASA is on its way to test a kinetic impactor on a binary asteroid system, one of the main goals is to determine is this method has future potential for application. On a side note, my professor for the above mentioned class was on this project, and a TA of mine from another class was involved in the principal calculations. Similar to the kinetic impactor we also have nukes. In the video they only talked about surface detonations, with nukes we would aim to detonate a distance from the surface of the asteroid to prevent breaking any large sections off. Again this method relies on the force created by the detonation to either increase or decrease orbital velocity. This method is a bit less feasible, although it is a solution for slightly larger asteroids (up to several kilometers). Realistically the world would have to come together against a threat that requires nuclear deflection, signing treaties and agreements that allow for the detonation of a nuclear weapon in space. There are many other proposed methods like a gravity tractor which would place a large ship in front or behind of the asteroid's orbit to increase or decrease its orbital velocity via gravitation. This is much more theoretical and at its current conceptual stage would require many years to affect its gravity enough to prevent an impact. Time is most important with all of these methods, the farther out a high chance impactor, the easier it will be to alter its orbit enough to prevent an impact. The asteroids we are most worried about range from ~50-1000 meters, because their potential for devastation is great and they are small enough that some avoid detection. When it comes to larger asteroids, their size gives us a leg up, we would likely discover an impactor chance from a larger body with significant time beforehand, giving us more time to solve a more difficult deflection. Also looking at the statistics and the functions of our solar system, the chance of any significant asteroid impacting in our lifetimes is low.

Will you please give me a simplified version? It's 12:00 and my mom would kill me, so I don't have much time to read an entire paragraph

Wouldn't a rubble pile burn up much faster than a single asteroid? You're dealing with far more surface area in direct contact with the atmosphere. Wouldn't stop it, but seems like it would make a drastic difference.

@Logic Prevails mmh, in that case we didnt hit it with a bomb powerful enough. Also making it explode later would help, less time for the pieces to reconjugate

'Rubble piles' or C-Type asteroids in more scientific terms indeed rarely make it to the surface before burning up. It's the rocky and metal type (S-type and M-type, respectively) that are the most dangerous

Lol tell that a redhead female 500 yrs ago

with "pile of rubble" they literally mean that: It's one gigantic chunk made up from thousands of pebbles stuck together by gravity and/or slightly melted by friction. This means that while technically being a pile of rubble, it effectively acts as one big clump, especially in the most relevant time during reentry where everything gets melted and liquefied into a blob anyways

Fun Fact: If it wasn’t for Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, the Earth would get hit all the time with asteroids. Jupiter’s rich gravity ALMOST always takes the blows.

@Abhinav Menon What's your point?

Jupiter is gassy...😁

@Stephen pinu Vincent Harris 8 months ago NOT A FUN FACT.

@Stephen pinu well for something to be a fact it has to be true lol

@Gandhi_Physique that makes the fact less fun😐

That guy was so chill talking about the devastating impacts of asteroids, so you can tell he's been researching them for a long time

Since learning about the Chicxulub Asteroid, I've always wondered how much it impacted our atmosphere and thought, this may be the reason nothing grows as large as the dinosaurs did. That is, because it destroyed a major portion of the oxygen in the atmosphere. Maybe that's way off base. I got the idea after having kept fish for about 10 years. Then I learned that, how big a fish grows in a tank depends on two things: #1, how much oxygen is in the water AND #2, how many other fish are also using that oxygen. So it makes sense. But is this the reason animals do not grow as large as they did during the time of the dinosaur?

@Ziggy F Thank you. Yes, increased CO2 certainly is a concern. The hardest question is, can we do anything effective about it now? When the pandemic struck and so many people stayed home -- and many office-type jobs learned about remote working -- I was hopeful this would become a popular trend, long term. I kept thinking, it is so good on several levels: less commuting means less pollution but it also means people waste less time because of their jobs and can regain some time with their families. AND the businesses can save money on all the expenses of keeping larger office areas. It's a win-win-win! But, no. Most have reverted and seem to cling to the old ways. :( Failure to adapt... that's what killed the dinosaurs.

In a roundabout way you are totally correct - the earth's atmosphere used to have (many millions of years ago) a far higher % of oxygen than it does today. I remember reading it was something like 28-35% back in the early days of dinosaurs, whereas its down to 20-22% these days. what caused the depletion of all that oxygen is up for huge debate - certainly many causes over 10's of millions of years.... and I'm sure huge asteroid explosions that changed the whole structure of the atmosphere contributed a considerable amount. also note that with a higher % of oxygen comes a much higher chance for huge forest fires that burn for months at a time... and what they burn releases CO2, thereby reducing oxygen further. For all we know, the total amount of oxygen in the atmosphere may be on a permanent very-long-term decline, but the timeframe is so huge (hundreds of millions of years) it doesn't really affect us and we may as well consider it stable. The huge rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration that we humans have been causing in the last 300 years on the other hand is totally unprecedented and is a MASSIVE cause for concern for us right now!

A 1-2 kilometer rock would definitely obliterate Germany or France, but when you consider impact angle and the amount of ejecta even those could have a global effect. It may not turn the earth into a roaster like the K-T event, but it definitely would have a climatic effect considering a volcano that releases far less energy can affect the entire Earth's climate.

there actually was an impact in Germany about 15 million years ago. It had about 1.5 km diameter and most likely instantly killed every living thing in a 100km radius

he also forgot to mention, when it hits the ocean, it will be also big problem, with tsunami, it will create. He also forgot mention radiation... imagine, how many nuclear plants will be affected by big explosion. It will make problem even bigger, particulary if it hit country with big number of nuclear plants. Imagine, what caused only Chernobyl or Fukushima on their own. Now imagine 300 nuclear plants being hit...

This is one of the best example of clear, rational, scientific thinking and presentation of a subject. Outstanding. Full marks.

Hats off to the cameraman who filmed all this space stuff for us.

And the dinosaur footage. Really putting in the time on that stuff.

Hats off to the camera

@Levi Kassinove I wonder if you make a new YouTube account or just didn't make a new one

Great comment my friend.

@Levi Kassinove *sigh*

I love your videos, I learn so much from them I did not know anything about until I came across your work. Keep up the good work.

This was really good. Ar really well made scientiifically documented video. Thank you!!!

3:24 Most protoplanets that collided never left each other's gravitc influence, and much like Earth evolved into a planet and a moon, with only a tiny fraction of the debris picking up enough speed from impact energy transfer to actually come loose from the gravitic influence of both and become seperate objects from their parent planets.

4:37 Asteroid impact is really high on the scale of threats to global human life, but I think man made virus ranks higher and shares a spot with global nuclear proliferation, if not above it.

Wow, this was very well done, thank you Veritasium you deserve your millions of views. With all the mass murders and our national debt and world debt and wars, etc. an asteroid does not bother me. I can see why the Bible says, "fear nothing, stop fearing."

Veritasium's videos now have better production than most documentaries i watched as a kid (and are more informative)!

@Fun and Adventure tour drop drop

GHUB 8

@Fun and Adventure tour stops parking garage

@Fun and Adventure tour stops parking

@Fun and Adventure tour tour stops breathing

Great video, as usual. But, I don’t think the analysis of city evacuation is quite on point. We do have experience evacuating populations, and there are viable options. We’ve see regular evacuations from flood zones in advance of hurricanes on a fairly regular basis.

I saw one this impressive after midnight about a year ago. I was having a smoke and then everything lit up. I turneed around and watched, fascinated at 1st, then leary as I thought it would hit nearby community. It burned out and heard no sound. So similar to this vid too!

3:41 Only the few will recognize this piece of space history for what it truly is, AMAZING! Not to mention, the size of it! I have found small ones the size of pebbles in the Arizona desert, but this one could easily make you A LOT of money. Not that I would sell it if I had it and it is obvious this man does not plan to either.

I’ve been subscribed for a decade plus and just can’t get enough of this channel!! Love it!!

@vknaga what?

4 and a half billion years ago are you kidding me... I believe in 100 thousand years ago but not billion, my man Is so confident talking about 4 billion years ago like he seen with his own nacked eye 👁️

The idea of a kilometres-wide chunk of iron getting so hot that it becomes - not just a liquid, but a GAS - is genuinely hard for me to imagine.

@Sirzn Because it has poor thermal conductivity and it speaks to common sense, like metal that feels colder than paper with the same temperature.

@Peter most stone melts before iron, I dont know why people consider stone resistant to melting

@Peter Molten steel is about as hot as lava. Also, a guy made lava in his backyard using sunlight and an optical system.

@Peter what would we HOLD it in?

high iq comment section

I couldn't imagine all of the people that were driving bear the meteor in chelyabinsk; their windshields shattering and then crashing. It's a horrific reality

This is a fantastic video! Having grown up right next door to a minute man missile base in the 60s taught me that there's some things I'm just not going to worry about LOL!

12:24 Well not quite zero. Any impactor that could be extra-solair would still be possible, and also the ones we didn't yet catalog and yet still exists somewhere in a near unstable/metastable path, that could allow release from it's celestial counterpart. (similar to a very fine spiral trajectory) And impactors that are on a 100+ year trajectory for a single orbit of the Sun. (with highly different apses, one very near the Sun and one beyond even Pluto.)

As a kid it was always a HUGE fear of mine that an asteroid would hit the Earth. NOW , not so bad.

"We're really not that good at detecting asteroids before they're going to hit us." Well. That's comforting.

@Owen Halverson bruh, 6 miles wide? I think that's a freakin Comet, not a meteorid anymore.

Nothing happened for tens of millions of years during the age of the dinosaurs. That gives you some approximation of the likelihood that it would occur.

@J Smith but didn’t the last one that hit earth kill the dinos…..millions of years ago 💀 are we not overdue

Asteroids travel about 25 km/s on average, but the fastest man-made object, which is a large steel manhole cover launched by a nuke, traveled 6X Earth's escape velocity, which is 67.2 km/s (150,322.1 mph)! Nobody knows for sure exactly how fast the manhole cover was going, but it was traveling 125,000 mph at minium!

I think it’s obvious that we need to build a massive railgun, and then put it in the arctic. The railgun needs to be put on a floating iceberg though. And we need to lower security of our military radios so that civilian women and children can talk to any aircraft, driven by convicts, while on mission. Hopefully a eastern european country will then build their own as well. If that isn't enough we must give a captain the control of a submersible aircraft carrier with nukes and railguns just to be sure we are safe.

SALVATION!

When I learned about all the asteroids near to the earth that could potentially destroy humanity, it really felt like somebody is holding me at gunpoint and could pull the trigger any second.

Actually a sequence of controlled positioned nuclear explosions is very effective to quickly change a trajectory of impact. This guy was being a fatalist when he really didn't need to be.

I like how the guy casually walks into his living room with the heart of a 4.5 billion year old planet

@Nothing I'm talking about the trex skull

@ETAN not replica, its real

In the end of the day it's just a rock

put a supreme sticker on it

@Zelmerlow Yeah, but he owns a piece of the heart

Love the guy talking about the chances of getting hit when we don’t even see or know about 95% that actually impact earth

In 2015 (i think) Neil deGrasse Tyson was on a science tour thing and I went to see him with my dad. He talked about the asteroid and played one of the videos that you showed here. He also played a video of a someone standing in front of a mirror and then a guy flew through the mirror, back first , and slammed into the other person. I immediately laughed because a guy just flew through a mirror at someone. It was not so funny after I got context. Also I was like 7 or smt idk.

Given the margin for error and a 100km fatal blast radius, and a 7 day notice period, mentioned in the video, and the inability to use a car, one starts to question if it's worth even walking away at all, given that you may be inadvertently walking TOWARDS where it will hit. You just maybe have to hope it doesn't hit you.

You considered blowing up an asteroid before it hit, and dismissed the idea because the pieces would exert gravitational attraction and re-form. But couldn't you time the explosion so that this gravitational process would not have time to occur? And aren't smaller pieces much less damaging than the same mass in a single piece? Isn't a loose cloud much less damaging than a dense pack of the same pieces? It seems like there would be damage functions of asteroids on the bases of not just mass but maximum solid size and maybe proximity, both of which could be significantly affected through detonation. It all sounded so theoretical--where are the simulations and graphs?

That scientist dude is definition of being cool and a nerd at the same time

Shame he doesn't know about gaps in cloth vs. viral sizes.

Not sure that's possible

Kinda like Neil Degrassi Tyson and Bill Nye? Lol

Nerds are cool. The richest people in the world are all nerds.

Lol, i dont think you know what “cool” is

I love that he suggests the best way to avoid an asteroid strike is to wrap it in foil.

An only solution that comes to mind for me to having figured out 15 to 20 years back; is to have all laptops become constructed of with an absolute mirror and automatic aim of reflecting the sun towards the comets all at the same time and areas until it is gone.

there's something particularly haunting about seeing someone who knows so much say "we don't know what will happen until our lives are directly threatened".

The thought of getting instantly vaporized and disintegrated into fundamental particles, is calming. More calming than the slow death and struggles to stay alive. In the society where people step on one another to get themselves higher and further.

Never have I ever imagined that I would grow emotional for the dinosaurs that no longer exist...until I watched this. Watching the excerpts of cgi dinos trying to run from that unexpected pain really just sort of broke my heart. How horrible it would have been to just be minding your business, eating a plant or carcass...and BOOM! You're suddenly in excruciating pain and being cooked alive. How awful!

More unthinkable is if nothing this had happen with dinos, we would never have a planet for us.

@lego death star productions well written . Needs to be at least a graphic novel.

Watch the movie dinosaurs. That movie hits you hard . The poor animals crying for the ones left behind . I won’t spoil it for you but man it will make you cry .

I feel the same way

@Bir Şiir Of course not. Bacteria arent conscious. Dinosaurs are intelligent conscious being with emotions and the ability to suffer. Im assuming you dont torture dogs right? Why don't you?

if we cant redirect the energy of the asteroid then can we maybe change its state? what i mean by that is could use the energy of the impact like we use the heat a nuclear reactor generates? imagine all that energy getting used by humanity rather than allowing it to destroy.

I had an asteroid incident, I didn't record it, me and my mum were the only ones on the road for 10s of kilometers. We saw an asteroid / meteor idk, it came down on us from very far away, it took 180 seconds for us to hear the sound.

Where were you guys roughly? And also roughly what year?

I know that I'm living in a dream world, but is it possible to setup an invisible "screen" of energy that will ward off any threat given by the asteroids? maybe microwaves?

What’s sad to me is there’s scientists that have said we could actually make a weapon that could destroy meteors before they hit at full weight but even now it would take at least a decade for them to build something like that.

​@2424Lars How are kinetic impactors more feasible? And what I meant by hitting the asteroid on its "side" is hitting it at a 90-degree angle. Which, based on classical mechanics, would presumably result in maximum effect, since deviation from that angle should cause that component of the rocket's moment to be lost. And I would assume hitting an asteroid would be quite difficult. We can't hit nuclear missiles in flight with perfect accuracy yet, and with rockets being subject to cosmic rays and potential collisions with smaller asteroids, they would likely be even harder to deliver reliably. And though their target would be much larger, it would be much further away (because if it wasn't, it couldn't be deflected anymore) meaning that any error in the trajectory of the rocket (or the asteroid) would significantly increase the likelihood of the rocket missing.

@VVayVVard We just need better infrared telescopes, and there are several in development for this exact purpose (NEO Surveyor for example). It's also relatively easy to hit an asteroid due to orbital mechanics. In fact, we're gonna crash a spacecraft into an asteroid later this year to test exactly how well we can change its velocity (DART mission). Nobody is seriously talking about nuking asteroids, real space engineers (like me) know a kinetic impactor is a much more feasible option. And by the way, by hitting it on its prograde face you actually change the orbit way more effectively than by hitting it on its side.

​@2424Lars But you'll need a way to detect them that early. And actually hitting the target is going to be another issue, since it's moving so fast and since you have to hit it from the side. It's going to be easier to land a hit with an explosion.

@VVayVVard But the point is you don't need a big impact at all. If you nudge the asteroid early enough the orbit will show very large changes over time

​@2424Lars Nuclear explosions are much more energetic than spacecraft collisions are though, and so they'd have a bigger impact on the orbit.

Honestly, I don't think we need an asteroid's help to get humans extinct, I think we're doing good enough ourselves.

7.8 billion and counting

Not good enough

True True

agree

What a painful way for the dinosaurs to go. I grew up in Florida, so I'm familiar with "the sky cooking everything on the ground" as you know, a close-to-accurate, but not actually *literal* description. :(

9:30. Couldn’t find the asteroid because the crater has two rim craters. It’s scar from always perpendicular electrical discharge, thus always circular with fractal rim and bullseye craters. This has been documented for thousands of years and perfectly understood for hundreds.

I believe what Stephen Hawking really stated was the greatest threat to life on earth is either getting impacted by asteroids or swallowed by a black hole.....something else to consider.

I feel like he didn’t say that considering how far away most black holes are

The discoverer of the asteroid named KANSAS, Dave Tholen, was in my Astronomy classes at the University of Kansas. I visited him and other near earth object NEO ASTRONOMERS at the University of Arizona in about 1985 .

Props to the camera man for risking his life to capture these dangerous objects in space.

This was absolutely fascinating!

Actually, cities occupy a tiny percentage of the Earth's surface and are unlikely to get hit directly. However, 71% of the Earth's surface is oceans, and a water impact could result in a megatsunami that would wipe out entire coastal cities even thousands of miles away.

Instead of trying to destroy the object, we could explode a part of it so the damage is reduced,and the rocket we throw at it will slightly change its motion.

Any impact will slightly change its orbit, and if you do it early enough you can make the asteroid miss Earth altogether. We're actually going to test this in september by smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid moon to see how well we can change its orbit.

The inertial power of an object that size is truly humongous. Even 100 rockets wouldn't do much except knock off a few chips to small to matter. A synchronous blast of 2,000-5,000 or so nuclear blasts, (more or less depending on the kiloton range), might do it but also might just break it up into (radioactive) chunks that fall to earth. Rocks are HARD which you no doubt know if you've ever been hit by one and you can't stop them by putting out your palm, your wrist or arm will break. So, despite our supposed technological superiority we're just as vulnerable as the cavemen who looked at the sky and saw doom in shooting stars. They were right!

Just let Kim jung-un go all out on it

It is interesting the potential link between asteroid impact (give or take impact angle) and a super volcano on the opposite surface of the planet …

A wise man once said "Don’t worry about a thing, 'Cause every little thing, is gonna be alright."

@JaKoB_pLaYz omg my damn brother watches him all the time and it's like bruh.. lmao

That what's the dinosaurs said

That's why I also choose not to worry.

@flameodeX Seriously? Lmfao smh that makes no sense! “Avengers” aren’t a wise man it’s a stupid Hero Movie

Wouldn’t it be possible to implant bombs in the asteroid and then trigger them while the asteroid ☄️ is already entered into the atmosphere; that could greatly mitigate the impact and force of the crash. Also once it is past the atmosphere it won’t be able to reform, maybe so this at 5-10k above sea level and turn it into powder

i think more ozone and oxygen helps with the planetary defense system against meteors and asteroids, minor influence but significant if added to other things

Maybe a stupid question, but could we nuke it close to the earth so it wouldn't have time to come back together into a big mass? I know there would be consequences to doing that, but you'd think you could mitigate some of the risk of one that's big enough to cause extinction. 🤔

I feel like scientists did predict that the asteroid would enter the earth's atmosphere, but chose not to disclose it for fear of public panic.

This scientist is such a legend. He has a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite, a men in black chair, and a t rex skull

Do scientists lie

@Insertname .

0in

ລ

Says the scientist whom benefits from funding of space mapping, "Forget protection measures and spend everything on mapping it all and then when we find something, only then, worry about being able to alter it". Even though with the trajectory of such a threat, there will not be enough time to accumulate the data to determine if it is indeed a threat to Earth, much less the time to plan an alteration of the trajectory of such a threat.

We could probably predict more if we knew the strength of the gravitational pull in the other planets.

The gravitational effect is pretty well known, the biggest unknown influence on an asteroids orbit is the Yarkovski effect. It's basially a force that is exerted on the asteroid by the infrared radiation its surface emits as it cools down, which has a certain direction depending on the rotation of the asteroid. You can only model this if you accurately know the rotation rate of the asteroid and the thermal properties of its surface, so you would need to send a spacecraft close enough to measure these things. The OSIRIS-Rex mission recently did this for the asteroid it was investigating, and with the emerging technology of interplanetary cubesats we migth be able to do this for many more asteroids in the future.

We do know the gravitational attraction of other planets though. The problem is that the n-body problem is chaotic, i.e. even minuscule errors in measurements would drastically increase the errors in predictions.

His whole thing about evacuations is partly true but I live in the southern US and we have LOTS of hurricanes. Yes, the highways get clogged but within a day or two a city like New Orleans will empty out and become a ghost town.

There really is something great knowing that the human species won't last forever and that the Earth will always recover, despite all these "scenarios".!

What an amazing professor, I envy the the students that have had the opportunity to attend his lecture.

Very enjoyable to listen to.

@Jeff Carter i think its in the description.

Does anyone know the professor's name?

@Jarko ¿ Aww hey you should be excited! The fact that you are doing somthing says alot, it's not easy, or cheap you've got that right. I've seen alot of people decide to just take the easy way, and spend their time and energy and money on crazy things. But whatever makes them happy I guess.

@SpagettiOsMeatballThief medical billing&coding. Not something I ever once thought about until recently. And I don't feel exciting giving that answer. I needed to invest in something that will provide. And work around the way things are. I made a choice I was going to start with something with more opportunity for growth in a at home flexible setting. It's a start. Never have I ever would have guessed the cost. But I'm in to deep now l. Ha.

5:49 In the future when advanced LIGO has advanced further yet, an omnidirectional gravitic change detector can detect anything not on the planet but within our solar system, whether light or dark, including space vessels, space stations, or anything with sufficient mass to cause significant distortion in the gravity signal. I think about 30 years tops, before it's operational.

evacuation might be feasible if as the asteroid gets gradually closer we can continue to rule out more and more locations. so if you know a month out that you are in the danger zone, you can choose to leave earlier to be on the safe side, then hopefully by the time we know what city it will likely hit, it will be easier to evacuate. but i also saw a breakdown once before on the fact that chances are highest it would hit water, and then if it did hit land chances are still pretty slim it would hit a big city

The rocket idea is pretty solid, other than the tethering part. As long as the rocket can pulse on and off as it spins

"The oldest thing you'll ever see" While that is extremely likely to be true, ti isn;t necessarily so. It's possible there are objects much older than that here on Earth right now. Something like ʻOumuamua could have driven by and crashed into the Earth, its age could be much much older than 4.5 billion years. Did the study of using some kind of rocket engine to propel an asteroid to miss the earth consider an Orion Drive, the drive that uises nuclear bombs for the propulsion?

sun is older than that asteroid

Asteroids in a nutshell: low-probability, high consequence.

just like having a child with a family member

@gold nutter did you get that from the old dude that stays on the roof of the polar express

It's not that low of probability. Seems every couple life spans there's a big enough impact to cause deaths

Jus

So you better WORRYYYYYY!!

I sure don't dismiss the threat posed by asteroid impact. But, at present, I think thermonuclear war would be a greater threat to life on Earth. I've been to Barringer Crater twice! And hiked its circumference once. I could live quite well off the income from this single monetized video, with 72M views in 20 months. It's far more than my actual income.

Could we detect asteroids between earth and the sun by comparing images of the solar surface with what is deflected off the earth's magnetic field and looking for the shadows of asteroids in the errors?

It's much easier to place a backwards-looking space telescope close to the orbit of Venus, something the B612 foundation was considering.

measuring the whole of the earth's magnetic field will be a challenge i think. idk

a satellite that can secure discarded space hardware containing metals that can be magnetized, use a lens to melt and refine the metals and then use an inductor / coil to magnetize the metal. Over time a large orbiting magnet would accumulate and might be able to be used to change trajectory of dangerous objects. probably crazy idea

don't we have a billion satellite debris right above us ? wouldn't they act as another layer of "shield" asteroid belt to potentially break up larger asteroids ?

“If you are scared of a meteor impact then this will put you at ease, *you can die a thousand more painful ways* “

In the West

well on the bright side, everyone dies so there'll no one to leave behind.

Luckily it did not happen to me I was born in 2014

Imagine those people were you that would be bad

Thanks for mentioning the source of the music in you description! Great subject. I love your videos! 🙂

Also, Elon Musk’s reusable rockets have “flutters”, or something like that, which can be aligned with rocket power to counterbalance with the meteor’s spin speed. Or something like that.

ha ha

My seismic crew and i saw an asteroid with our naked eyes that I have no doubt, if it would have impacted , would have changed life on earth as we know it. It was march 1985, in northernmost Alberta,Canada,10 pm or so.our linetruck driver drew our attention to it by exclaiming: WHAT THE F***!!! At first I thought it was the moon ,thru the trees ,but we pulled into a clearing and hopped out to get a better look. it was a large ..rock.. moving across the clear night sky..slowly..with its leading edge glowing incandescently..i could see its terrain..a couple of small chunks came off and were trailing flame of purple and green hues..it must have been traveling at enormous speed..but yet seemed to be moving slowly across the sky..it relatively appeared to be the size of a full moon..we stood there..mouths agape..and watched it.. travel across the sky..it took what seemed to be a minute..maybe more..an extremely long time compared to any footage I have ever seen of any other meteorites or fireballs..even the Russian one,which was gone in a flash compared with this.. Im no expert..but this is what I know: it was moving very fast to have the leading edge glowing incandescent it was far away to seem to be moving slowly..had to be the very outer atmosphere yet still hitting atmosphere to glow incadescently.. ..and appeared the relative size of the moon in the sky.. and it was completely silent..we stood there awhile..no sonic boom..nothing. (if it was closer ,there should have been a mighty,earth shattering, KA-BOOOM ) I roughly tried to figure it out at one point,knowing the rough distance to the outer atmosphere,distance to the moon and its diameter..basic trig. and... the thing would likely have been in excess of a kilometer across..i believe it was a rubble pile of great magnitude. I hope to god I never see it again but I WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT I SAW THAT NIGHT ! the thought of it still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end

what about the trillions of comets that come from the Ort cloud, out of nowhere like the one that came close to hitting Mars a few years ago. There is no way to know if one is coming at us.

"And if we saw one coming, what would we do about it?" Me: "Become cameramen."

@Talk True this comment is making me question life 😧

At least you didnt comment “sHoUtOuT tO tHe CaMeRaMaN”

Cam👀Era, If you put it in the magic message machine or the television machine the Americans will believe anything. If the power goes out you're going to lose all your friends inside the magic message machine inside your head. You can only space out in outer space if you have a magic cell phone message machine or television machine but not in real life. exAMEN 🌈 Firm'Amen'T. WaterFALLS seaLEvEL. HeavenO hellO, repent and believe the whole gospel

Lol the other people ahhhh me guys look at this

Lamooo

You could probably land a big solar powered slingshot or ballista, and just keep shooting bits of the asteroid itself into space at escape velocity. Which for an asteroid should not be substantial. For example escape velocity on the Mars moon Phobos, which has a mean radius if somewhere 11km, escape velocity is 41km/h. Would obviously need some earth moving capability as well. Make it lighter bit by bit while changing its course. I mean if you could sling a few metric tons at a time, around the clock, then you could probably make a bit of a dent over time. Say 10 tons at a time. 100 launches a day. That's a thousand tons a day. High quality, sustainable thrust. It would probably be quicker than boiling part of it away with a laser.

Old man: Sure, there's no chance of seeing a 10km asteroid because we haven't found any that will impact the earth within the next hundred years. A few minutes prior: Well, we can't really see asteroids from certain directions, so yeah. Me: ok, so, there is a non-zero chance...

Prof. Dave Jewitt, young lady ;) Nice, critical thinking. NASA and astronomers are watching all the time, so they have decent coverage of the sky in multiple directions regarding larger bodies. There is always a non-zero chance, though. It is hard to prove negative. They would have to search the local neighbourhood within hundreds of AU to be sure. See the Oumuamua or 2I/Borisov.

If you attach a rocket and change the power and direction of the propulsion, it can maybe compensate for asteroid rotation.

Me: Man, this stuff sounds really terrifying. Veritasium: If you're concerned about the world ending in an asteroid impact, let me set your mind at ease with this map of many other potential global catastrophes. Me: Pfew, thanks dude. What a relief!

I feel like the probability of a "City Killer" meteor _actually_ hitting an urban area would be pretty low. According to a European study from 2010, urban areas only cover 0.5% of *land* . Considering only about 30% of the Earth is covered by land, that makes this probability even smaller for the planet as a whole. Excluding tsunamis caused by a water impact, I wouldn't be too worried about it 😅

@Erhan Abdurrahman Your book was written like 3000 years ago by people who didn't even knew about 1/10000 of the current knoweldge, yes it's outdated. Seek refuge if you want, that's why you need a religion, because religion teached you fear and than you need your religion to overcome your artifical fear, stay ignorant.

@ballom29 Our Book The Glorious Qur'an is not a outdated book .. It will shine like a sparkling, luminous and radaiant star till the last day of the universe .. I seek refuge with Allah ( The God) from expelled devil Surah Al Saff / Chapter 61 - The Line 8. Fain would they put out the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah will perfect His light however much the disbelievers are averse. 9. He it is who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it conqueror of all religion however much polyteists may be averse.

@Erhan Abdurrahman good boy you know how to copy/paste. Like heck, what I am even supposed to understand with that badly written nonsense? If I didn't guessed it was from your outdated book I would just see that as randomized words.

​@ballom29 I seek refuge with Allah (The God) from expelled satan Chapter 40- The Believer 68. He is THe One Who gives Life and Death; and when He decides upon an affair, He says to it, "Be", and it is. 69. Seest thou not those that dispute concerning the Sings of Allah. How are they turned away (from Reality)?- 70. Those who reject the Book and the (revelations) with which We sent our messengers: but soon shall they know,- 71. When the yokes (shall be) round their necks, and the chains; they shall be dragged along- 72. In the boiling fetid fluid; then in the Fire shall they be burned; 73. Then shall it be said to them: "Where are the (deities) to which ye gave part- worship- 74. "In derogation of Allah." They will reply: "They have left us in the lurch: Nay, we invoked not, of old, anything (that had real existence)." Thus does Allah leave the Unbelievers to stray. 75. "That was because ye were wont to rejoice on the earth in things other than the Truth, and that ye were wont to be insolent. 76. "Enter ye the gates of Hell, to dwell therein: and evil is (this) abode of the arrogant!"

@ballom29 I Seek refuge with Allah (The God) from expelled satan Holy Qur'an Chapter 43 The Jewellary 5. Shall We then take away the Message (The Qur'an) from you and neglect (you), for that ye are a people transgressing beyond bounds? 6. But how many were the messangers We sent amongst the peoples of old? 7. And never came there a messenger to them but they mocked him. 8. So We destroyed (them)- stronger in power than these;- and (thus) has passed on the Parable of the peoples of old. 9. If thou wert to question them, ´Who created the heavens and the earth?´They would be sure to reply, ´they were created by (Him), the Exalted in Power, Full of Knowledge´; 10. (Yea, the same that) has made for you the earth (like a carpet) spread out, and has made for you roads (and channels) therein, in order that ye may find guidance (on the way); 11. That sends down (from time to time) rain from the sky in due measure; and We raise to life therewith a land that is dead; even so will ye be raised (from the dead);- 12. That has created pairs in all things, and has made for you ships and mounts (vehicles) on which ye ride, 13. In order that ye may sit firm and square on their backs, and when so seated, ye may celebrate the (kind) favour of your Lord, and say, "Glory to Him Who has subjected these to our (use), for we could never have accomplished this (by ourselves), 14. "And to our Lord, surely, must we turn back!"

What could you do about a steerable hypersonic weapon aimed at the earth?

The only reason Nuclear bombs are designed for "~100 megatons" right now is because they had requirements from their military to be able to destroy the largest urban sprawling cities... If there were a world ending event where the US or a coalition of countries decided to design something larger, not meant to be exploded within the atmosphere... Larger nuclear weapons may be a viable option. -'In-the-know' Engineer

One thing about it if they ever discover a really big asteroid heading towards earth, I would bet that all the nations would pull together.

Are asteroids able to eclipse distant stars? Or at least have their transits differentiated from exoplanets? Also wouldn't solar sails work instead of cooking foil?

Yes, we use stellar occultations often to determine the shape and exact position of asteroids. This is how we found out about Ultima Thule's weird double-lobed pancake shape way before New Horizons arrived there for example. Solar sails and cooking foil are basically the same principle, a solar sail is just a flat reflective surface, usually with adaptable reflectivity for stability and steering.

Veritasium trying to give us all existential crises worse than Vsauce does.

@Vigilant Cosmic Penguin Your username is incredible.

We're reaching Kurzgesagt levels of existential crisis!

@Fun and Adventure Seen't

If he were trying he'd talk about how we have no idea how to control a true AI and how easily it could kill us.

would it hurt to die from asteroid impact or would it be too quick for you to feel pain?

To direct an asteroid away from earth- why not have 1 or more rockets attached to the meteor and when they spin to a chosen position they turn on and when moving out of position they turn off and same for each of the other rockets when they come into the chosen postion. Eventually it will move the meteor out of trajectory from earth, if its small enough.

I'm not convinced blowing up such an asteroid is hopeless... Given some warning we could launch multiple such rockets, and at the very least achieve more "burnoff" in the atmosphere if not an actual change in trajectory. Much better than nothing.

16:22 My latest envisioned asteroid defence is a big fat tin foil mirror, that functions as magnifying glas. Evaporate enough of it to cause explosion, the two sides split up, and repeat, until each chunk has been diverted or doesn't cause physical impact. One problem, deployment needs worldwide acknowledgement and consent, since when under a single nation's command, it could be considered a space weapon, which is not allowed according to global treaties. Ofc, we can also use it for other stuff, if and wehn all other nations agree it to be used for such. But that's politician land. Also, early detection and attaching an engine is the best bet, in spite of what you said. I calculated that even a mere 4 newtons of thrust would suffice over a 6 months period, to miss the Earth, for

No one’s gonna talk about all the cool graphics? Your upload frequency has gone up, visuals are amazing and content is as informative and enjoyable as always. Good for you, Derek!

@Cedric Singleton Yes?

@Emcee Boogieboots ,

@Dan M Why is this to be preached to those in Canada and the US? And also there are some letters missing in the lgb acronym thing. Probably quite a few now as it seems to grow weekly! Inclusivity my friend!!

@Dan M hi Jesus what's up

Shadman *Incoming asteroids, meteors (NEOs) in December and beyond...* *God the Father on LGBTQ, plagues and why fire from sky and how to get protected from it.* *Tuesday, October 30, 2018 (Fr. Michel Rodrigue message)* From the Eternal Father My son, Listen and write I demand that this message be communicated to everyone and everywhere that you have preached in United States and in Canada. Remember the night when Padre Pio brought you into Heaven to see the Holy Family. It was a teaching for you and for the people who have heard you. It was also a sign to recall the night when my Beloved Son Jesus was born into the world. Remember how my Evangelist Matthew wrote by the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit how the star stopped over the place where My Baby Son Jesus was born. It was a sign for the Wise men. Today, it is a sign for you and for all Christians and for all the nations. The Holy Family is a sign for every family, and we should model ourselves after them. I demand that every family, who receives this message, should have a representation of the Holy Family in their home. It can be an Icon or a statue of the Holy Family, or a permanent Manger in a center place in the home. The representation must be blessed and consecrated by a priest. As the star, followed by the Wise men, stopped over the Manger, the chastisement from the sky will not hit the Christians families devoted and protected by the Holy Family. The fire from the sky is a chastisement for the horrible crime of abortion and the culture of death, the sexual perversion, and the cupidity (lust) regarding the identity of man and woman. My children seek their perverted sins more than Eternal life. The increasing blasphemies and persecution of my just people offend Me. The Arm of my Justice will come now. They do not hear my Divine Mercy. I must now let many plagues happen in order to save the most people that I can from the slavery of Satan. Send this message to everyone. I have given Saint Joseph, My representative on earth, as a protector of the Holy Family, the authority to protect the Church which is the body of Christ. He will be the protector during the trials of this time. The Immaculate Heart of My daughter Mary and the Sacred Heart of my Beloved Son Jesus, with the Chaste and Pure Heart of Saint Joseph, will be the shield of your home, your family, and your Refuge during the events to come. My Words are my blessing over all of you. Whoever will act according to my Will, will be safe. The powerful love of the Holy Family will be manifested to all. I AM your Father, These words are Mine!

If you put the rock at the axis of rotation you can exert a consistent force over time.

So they had time to protect things from the sound of the blast… wow

That was a great interview with the scientist.

Despite our supposedly superior technology we are just as vulnerable as the cave men who looked at the sky and saw doom in shooting stars. They were right long before science proved their fears true. Btw I followed your suggestion to visit DoS - Domain of Science and I'm glad I did. He holds himself to the same high standards as you do and also has a quirky sense of humor. So now I have to watch twice as many videos on these subjects. *Straightens glasses, picks up cold drink in one hand and puts other on the mouse. Ok, awaaaay we go!)

Enjoy!