Earthquake: terrestrial axis shift is measured

From Dan Cossu on amastro:

Terrestrial axis shift, probably due to the recent
massive earthquake in Asia, has been measured with
precision: 2 thousandths of an arcsecond!

Here's the interview by the scientist involved in the
research:
www.uai.it/index.php?tipo=A&id=662

You realise that since the north pole in the sky has moved slightly
that GOTO scopes will no longer be accurate

On a more serious note, its just shows how vulnerable our coastal areas are to major increases in water level.

Imagine a small asteroid hit the Ocean instead, how big an asteroid would it need to be in order to cause the tsunami that happened last week.??

On a more serious note, its just shows how vulnerable our coastal areas are to major increases in water level.

Imagine a small asteroid hit the Ocean instead, how big an asteroid would it need to be in order to cause the tsunami that happened last week.??

I remember reading a hypothetical scenario which was based on simulated data. It described a 1km asteroid hitting the south atlantic just off argentina. Basically the tsunami took out most of south america and over half of africa. The story went on to describe the four year 'blackout' and it sounded to me like I'd have preferred to be wiped out by the impact. It described people eating corpses because there was nothing else.

The energy released by the indian ocean earthquake was 32,000 megatons of tnt.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_...er_of_the_earthquake

For comparision Tunguska was a mere 10 megatons

www.spacetoday.net/Summary/1319

A 1km impact such as the one described in the scenario would have an energy of 100,000 megatonnes

According to this

earth.ast.smith.edu/courses/ast220/PPT/group06.ppt

to create an energy of 30,000 megatons the asteroid would have to be a mere 843meters wide!! Of course an asteroid impact of this size would not impart all of its energy into the sea. But then neither did the asian earthquake. Much of the energy would be absorbed by the bedrock and tectonic plates.

I dont like our chances!!


Dave.