Todays movie: 1998s asteroid thriller, Deep Impact.
The scientist: io9s resident geophysicist, Mika McKinnon.
Deep Impact: Everything will be okay as long as teenagers are still getting it on.
How often does this happen, really?
Small impact events happen all the time; large impact events happen less frequently.
Image credit:Stephen A. Nelson.
Verdict: Possible but extremely unlikely within our lifetimes.
Verdict: Highly plausible this is pretty much exactly how doomed we are.
The deeper problem though seems to be that astronomers in this movie dont actually look at stars.
It doesnt get any better when we switch off to his doomed mentor, Dr. Marcus Wolf.
or Ellie even after this movie came out.
Just no, not likely at all, and it makes me weep soggy tears for hard-working astronomers everywhere.
Its pretty much distilled awesome, right?
Wolf-Biederman has an albedo so bright, it may actually glow instead of just reluctantly reflect sunshine.
Sure, its good enough.
Comet harpoons have moved from science fiction to flat-out science since 1998.
More confusingly, Wolf-Biederman is possibly the brightest, highest-albedo comet that has ever existed.
Verdict: Big-strokes accurate-ish, but the details fall apart.
Doesnt real-life NASA also have a nuke-powered Orion prototype?
Orion spacecraftthat relies ontraditional chemical rockets.
Verdict: Plausible alternate future, if history had taken a different path.
Would we really be that bumblingly incompetent?
Blowing shit up will just add to our problems.
Diamond encrusted drill bit?
Cometary gravity strong enough to leave the drill platform at a strange, severe angle?
Its unfortunate yetsadly not unprecedented in spaceflightthat they mixed up the metric and imperial measurement systems.
Verdict: Depressingly plausible our puny nukes are useless.
I dont even care anymore.
Verdict: Implausible but who actually cares about setting anyway?
Yes, the graphics are, indeed, lovely!
But its only one wave.
Image credit:International Tsunami Information Center.
But you know what it really gets right?
He doesnt inform us, or doesnt know, that a tsunami also slows down as they shoal.
Verdict: Surprisingly plausible.
Ahahahahahhahahahahahahaha hah ah aha ha ha ha…
Wait, youre serious?
Impending doom is such a romantic setting for newlywed teenage orphans.
So, all that comet-dust.
Its still the same mass, just in bitty pieces now, right?
That shit still causes problems when it enters the atmosphere on that kind of scale.
Shockwaves, airbursts, flash-burns, direct impact… No way is this a Happily Ever After moment.
Whatever happens next, I cant imagine itll be pretty.
Verdict: Brain-bendingly implausible.
The Judgement
Deep Impact is a surprisingly plausible doomsday scenario, although verging on overly-optimistic at times.
News from the future, delivered to your present.
Here Are the Ways Large Asteroids Can Kill You, Ranked
