Deep Impact

[mattep74]

In 1998 we saw the movie Deep Impact.

Here are my questions

1. What happened in the world when the Messiah had saved the world from destruction? World Peace? How many millions died on both sides of the atlantic. HOw did they that were picked for shelter live on?

2. The messiah nukes failed and the big stone impacted in Canada. What happened to all those in shelters around the world?

 

[Doctor What]

1) Massive destruction and possibly short-term 'nuclear autumn' scenario. Easily 10 million dead -the entire eastern seaboard got wiped out--even if just 1% remained in the coast (unlikely--that scene showing New York City still looked pretty crowded to me), that's one million right there. Considering that the wave ended up travelling for a rather good distance inwards (they mentioned something about it reaching the Ohio valley, IIRC), tack another another million right there. It also hit the coasts of europe and maybe even africa. I figure 10 million would be the low number--wouldn't be surprised if 100 million died. It will takes years--if not decades--to rebuild everything. Thosee in sheelteers havee option of staying in and riding out the worse or climbing back out--doesn't reeally matter either way. World peace would have been more or less imposed on everyone as everyone will be too busy rebuilding and ceaning up to do anything beyond that. How long that would last is anybody's guess.

2) World destroyed. Only those in the shelters have any chance of survival. Survivors will climb out of shelters to find an ecologically devastated world that will take decades--if not centuries--to go back to normal. Long-term survival of those individuals iffy.

 

[Max Sinister]

Sorry to the Canadians out there, but unless it hit a bigger town, the world's better off than otherwise... there won't be a tidal wave destroying several coast cities, not too much ice smolten by the impact (what would happen if it hit Antarctica) - which would lead to lots of water in the atmosphere - and since it would be far in the North, it would take longer for the dust in the atmosphere to cover more southern areas, putting them in the dark.

How big did they say the asteroid was in the movie? It could still severely hurt civilisation...

 

[Doctor What]

Sorry to the Canadians out there, but unless it hit a bigger town, the world's better off than otherwise... there won't be a tidal wave destroying several coast cities, not too much ice smolten by the impact (what would happen if it hit Antarctica) - which would lead to lots of water in the atmosphere - and since it would be far in the North, it would take longer for the dust in the atmosphere to cover more southern areas, putting them in the dark.

How big did they say the asteroid was in the movie? It could still severely hurt civilisation...

It was about 5 miles across--something that big, doesn't matter where it hits--global disaster. We're talking about a 10,000 megaton explosion, Max.

Northern Hemisphere gets clobbered before southern hemisphere--that's the one (slight) advantage, that's all.

 

[mattep74]

1) Massive destruction and possibly short-term 'nuclear autumn' scenario. Easily 10 million dead -the entire eastern seaboard got wiped out--even if just 1% remained in the coast (unlikely--that scene showing New York City still looked pretty crowded to me), that's one million right there. Considering that the wave ended up travelling for a rather good distance inwards (they mentioned something about it reaching the Ohio valley, IIRC), tack another another million right there. It also hit the coasts of europe and maybe even africa. I figure 10 million would be the low number--wouldn't be surprised if 100 million died.

"The wawe hit Europe and Africa to" What happened to SouthAmerica?

Most of Europe would be shielded by the brittish isles i guess. The people of Norway would head en masse for the hills to evade the wave. Most of Sweden wouldnt notice anything

 

[hewhocaves]

ugh... we need to make a distinction between good science and bad movies, specifically when talking about bad science in bad movies.

for answers here, i refer to the ubergeeks at badastronomy.com where I sometimes also contribute. not surprisingly, there was a thread about this about a year ago.

http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=13142

essentially, what it said was that the ten or fifteen miles inland from the coast would be affected. which is bad, but not civilization-ending. There are a few things contributing to that. One, the easter seaboard in most places tends to gain elevation fairly quickly. Two, there's an entire mountain range (the appalachian-allegheny range) between the wave and the ohio valley.

on the minus side, the 2005 tsunami was felt clear up to alaska. (water rose by about a foot or so there). So we're looking at everyone in the atlantic - north, south being affected. England wouldn't even be a speed bump. The straits of gibralter would probably buffet the Med, but expect a wave of that size to go around the horn of Africa and do some damage in the indian ocean (especially in those low lying islands). I'm not going to try to figure out the damage or the deaths - i figure with two years notice that enough people will have moved out of harm's way.

Oh, and blowing it up is probably the worst thing you can do. Unless of course you like volkswagon sized shrapnel hitting the atmosphere at extreme velocity.

as for the origianl asteroid (i.e. the 1 mile one) according to a risk assessment for the NASA Cassini probe launch (don't ask why.. it's just there for comparison's sake because some nit wits whined that the probe would kill us all if it fell back into the atmosphere) for a 1 mile asteroid strike you're looking at 1 billion dead. For a 6 mile asteroid (i.e. roughly on par with one that killed the dinos) you're looking at 5 billion dead. And for an asteroid about 1000' wide, you're looking at 5,000 dead.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/Syllabi/97Dartmouth/day-6/risk.html

so yeah, somewhere between the 1 and 6 mile range you get a rock big enough to ignite the atmosphere (which is what happened at the end of the cretaceous - global firestorm and all that. for the 1 billion, you probably have localized (half a continent) damage plus the associated secondary deaths.

Oh.. and here's a link to a study stating that asteroids smaller than 1km are unlikely to cause tsunamis.
http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=4035

John

 

[Sargon]

Wouldn't Ireland shield some parts of the English and Welsh coasts from some of the worst effects of such a wave?

Sargon

 

[wkwillis]

Nuclear Winter

1. Plant every bit of ground and glean every bit of food possible.
2. Slaughter 99% of animals and salt/freeze/dry/can them.
3. Move people inland from flood zone.
4. Stockpile everything from toilet paper to detergent inland.
5. Dismantle buildings and clear cut lumber in strike zone/flood zone.
6. Set up landfill recycling sites.
7. Shut down and mothball things like nuclear power plants and oil wells.