Posted 30 июня 2021, 10:39
Published 30 июня 2021, 10:39
Modified 24 декабря 2022, 22:37
Updated 24 декабря 2022, 22:37
Iron asteroids: there is a trick that can protect the Earth from the danger
Andrey Zlobin, expert of the Center for Planetary Defense, candidate of technical sciences, mathematician
These include highly distant celestial bodies consisting of strong metals, in particular, iron and nickel. Such a celestial body can be part of the cometary nucleus and always maintain the ultra-low temperature of deep space due to the thick surface layer of ice and dust. What is the main danger here? First, it is not so easy to see from afar a massive metal body under a thick layer of cometary ice. Secondly, having arrived virtually from interstellar distances, such a body will have tremendous speed. Thirdly, the volume of dense metal will have a large mass and enormous kinetic energy. Suddenly emerging from the deep depths of space, such a massive and durable object may seem like a "crowbar" against which there is no reception. And if mankind has been discussing methods of counteracting stone asteroids for a long time, then with an iron bar weighing millions of tons, everything is much worse. At first glance, it seems impossible to destroy a large monolith of metal without forming dangerous fragments. And yet I found a way to neutralize the terrible "piece of iron". The main role in this case is assigned to the phenomenon of superconductivity in meteorites.
At the end of the 80s of the last century, for the first time in the world, I put forward a hypothesis about superconducting meteorites that have an extremely low temperature in space. Being then a young specialist of the Central Institute of Aviation Motors CIAM, he wrote a scientific article, which the institute officially sent to the Commission on Meteorites and Space Dust of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician N.V. Vasiliev. The CIAM printing house published an author's brochure describing the hypothesis, the energetics of the process, and in 1995 I made a report on a superconducting meteorite at a conference at the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences. Referring to my scientific article, the famous Russian astronomer and specialist in the physics of meteors V.A. Bronsten devoted a separate section of his monograph to the hypothesis of meteoric superconductivity. In 2009, Academician SS Grigoryan and co-authors once again cited my mechanism for the destruction of a superconducting meteorite in an article about the Tunguska meteorite published in the RFBR Vestnik journal. The temptation of this mechanism is that an impressive cosmic superconducting body collapses instantly and immediately throughout its entire volume, leaving no debris behind at all.
The above facts speak for themselves. The idea of a superconducting meteorite and a method for its destruction or deflection has been known in our country for more than three decades. But, as is often the case in science, many, many years pass from a hypothesis to its confirmation. Only thirty years later, in March 2018, the prestigious scientific journal Science (without reference to my authorship!) Published the results of American scientists who confirmed the property of superconductivity in two meteorites at once. Thus, there is now experimental confirmation of the hypothesis, and there is hope to protect our planet from even the most durable and deadly iron asteroids. Applying the analogy of the so-called composite superconductors, distant asteroids consisting of metals and silicates (iron-stone meteorites) can also be considered vulnerable. The thinnest inclusions of superconducting matter in asteroids can radically affect the physical properties of a celestial body and methods of neutralizing it as a dangerous space object. For example, as was established by Soviet scientists, at ultra-low temperatures, the properties of superconductivity are found in thin films of iron. Similar thin layers form the famous "Widmanstätten figures" in iron meteorites.
This is a vivid example of how, seemingly very far from life, scientific research develops into a technological breakthrough. After all, the discovery of superconducting meteorites suggests fantastic prospects in the aerospace field. This is the influence of fundamental science, the effectiveness of which becomes visible at times completely unexpectedly. Who would have thought that one of the founders of Russian cosmonautics, F.A. Tsander, would be right in expressing the idea of flight with the help of a superconductor in his report of March 25, 1930? Today, a meteorite-superconductor flying in the sky should no longer surprise - this is a well-known natural phenomenon, discovered at the tip of a pen in the USSR and Russia, and experimentally confirmed in the USA. Of course, meteorite superconductivity opens up new areas of research in the field of astrophysics. This concerns the electromagnetic and information exchange between space objects, as well as the general balance of energy and matter in the Universe. It is important to take into account that the class of superconducting materials has recently expanded significantly, including high-temperature superconductors. The future discovery of a fundamentally new superconducting substance in meteorite samples is also possible.
Russia's success in the discovery of meteorite superconductivity lies in the fact that officials from science did not interfere with the work. Over the course of thirty years, I, like many researchers of the Tunguska meteorite, carried out all the work on a voluntary basis, without receiving any money for it. The scientist's job is to conduct scientific work and publish the results, and not waste his time fighting for a penny funding. On the porch they serve more ... Chickens are laughed at and all these citation indices, from which only bureaucrats are thrilled, shaking for their place. IN In the 80s, with my hypothesis, I was ahead of the whole world by thirty years. Now I am half a century ahead, and every day this gap is growing rapidly. You need to understand that today there are two sciences. One, free of bureaucrats, is rapidly developing, not encountering any barriers in its path, and the other drags far behind, rotting in the swamp of illiterate bureaucratic desires. It is sad, of course, that the world prefers to chew on the bits of your scientific findings from thirty years ago. On the other hand, I am glad that the field of science is still an island of creative freedom. It is this freedom that guarantees the most important scientific results. A piece of paper and a pencil - for a highly qualified scientist, a mathematician is often enough to solve a problem. Alas, this will not be enough when mankind suddenly notices the “doomsday asteroid”. Then it will become clear that trillions of money should have been spent before, while there was still the most precious resource - time. And you shouldn't be surprised if, at a moment of critical danger for the planet, a scientist sympathetically gives you only a free piece of paper with a solution. Pliz, use ...
Related links:
1. Author's page on the website of the Center for Planetary Defense
2. Zlobin A.E. Results of computational-experimental and field research of the Tunguska space catastrophe (to the 110th anniversary of the event of 1908) // Modern scientific research and innovations. 2018. No. 6
3. Zlobin AE Discovery of probably Tunguska meteorites at the bottom of Khushmo River's shoal. arXiv: 1304.8070 [physics.gen-ph], 2013.
4. Zlobin AE Tunguska similar impacts and origin of life. arXiv: 1402.1408 [physics.gen-ph], 2013.
5. Zlobin AE Quasi Three-dimensional Modeling of Tunguska Comet Impact (1908). Paper of 2007 Planetary Defense Conference held on March 5-8, 2007 at the Cloyd Heck Marvin Center, George Washington University, Washington, DC