# How well would modern society handle the dinosaur killing meteor if it happened today? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 27, 2021, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856 "2021-02-27T00:30:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/161 "2021-03-05T18:02:05Z")
Energy equals momentum. Niven and Pournelle in assorted novels (i.e. The Mote in God’s Eye) suggested that a decent sized very light-weight sail spanning dozens or hundreds of kilometers could use the momentum from reflecting light from the sun or giant lasers to reach decently relativistic speeds, The obvious solution to an orbital laser would be … wait for it… orbit. During half the orbit it blasts away at the target and is pushed faster in its orbit around earth. then as it comes around from behind the earth and starts blasting again, the same amount of momentum slows the laser down as much as it was sped up. the orbit just has to be in the same plane as the beam direction. Just don’t blast away while in front of the earth, or you will progressively push the perigee closer to the earth until reentry and rapid unplanned disassembly happens. Again, the issue will be dissipating the left-over energy from firing the laser, since lasers are inherently inefficient. I think landing a large (LARGE!) number of ion engines and regularly refueling them would be the solution, given enough time. After all, given enough time, the deflection amount does not have to be large. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/162 "2021-03-05T19:34:37Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Energy equals momentum. … I don’t think so. For light. p=E/c. That is momentum equals the energy of the photons divided by the speed of light, a very large number, hence lots of light energy is very little momentum. Non-zero but “noticeable”? Enough to meaningfully impact the course of a very high mass space located laser station? So much that it would all that hard to correct for it? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2021, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/163 "2021-03-05T21:31:37Z")
Yeah, an asteroid-killing laser would produce some momentum, and it’d probably be enough that we’d need to account for it… but we can account for it, without too much difficulty. It wouldn’t be enough to cause any difficult-to-solve problems. To be sure, such a device would have 99 difficult-to-solve problems, but recoil ain’t one of them. > [@RTFirefly](#): > > Tru dat. If you scatter a bunch of _anything_ randomly, you’re going to have places where they’re relatively clumped. That’s the mathematics of arrival processes in a nutshell. But it wouldn’t even be random. Humans are already clumped in some places, and there are also clumps of where, for one reason or another, people would be better prepared for the event. The entire nation of Iceland, for instance, would probably survive, unless the impact were close enough to obliterate them: Everything there is built to tolerate extreme cold, and they’ve got abundant geothermal power, and already use it to grow food. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/164 "2021-03-06T00:02:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > it’d probably be enough that we’d need to account for it… but we can account for it, without too much difficulty. I’m sure we can. If we can land a rover on Mars with such a complicated delivery system, then in building a giant space laser, we can compensate for the thrust of the laser. However, we do need to make sure that we actually do. Just as we can compensate for the difference between English and Metric units, if we forget to do so, there can be consequences. > **[Mars Climate Orbiter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter)** > > The Mars Climate Orbiter (formerly the Mars Surveyor '98 Orbiter) was a robotic space probe launched by NASA on December 11, 1998, to study the Martian climate, Martian atmosphere, and surface changes and to act as the communications relay in the Mars Surveyor '98 program for Mars Polar Lander. However, on September 23, 1999, communication with the spacecraft was permanently lost as it went into orbital insertion. The spacecraft encountered Mars on a trajectory that brought it too close to the pl... I don’t think it would be enough to be hard to deal with, but I do think it would be more than enough to throw off our aim if we don’t. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/165 "2021-03-06T08:41:49Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The entire nation of Iceland, for instance, would probably survive, The nation that sits on top of one of Earth’s _most_ active hotspots? I don’t fancy their chances much at all. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/166 "2021-03-06T10:50:22Z")
I thought I gave sufficient room for people to expand the answer when I wrote “which, if not massless, is nearly so”, while making my answer short and easy to understand. I thought, someone may come by and say “As Melbourne suggested, transmission of light is not _entirely_ without reaction, only nearly so.” Alas, the tone of General Questions to frequently slides into ‘Great Debates’, with people looking for something to disagree with. Reading my post, I find that I can’t apologize for it. Would it have really been more helpful if I had written ‘momentum’ instead of ‘mass’? Most of my friends never did high school physics. When writing about the reaction required to move a mile-wide meteor, is throwing a can of beer – or an aspirin – a substantive action? Most of my friends would say it ‘has no effect’. I’m glad you’ve all taken the opportunity I deliberately threw open for you. I don’t think that making my own answer longer or denser would have been right. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/167 "2021-03-06T17:03:55Z")
FWIW it gave me an opportunity to reduce _my_ ignorance, as I found the question of whether or not there would be noticeable/significant momentum to deal with, the question of where and how fast the presumably massive laser station would move due to recoil, to be interesting. To answer precisely we need the mass of the station and knowledge of how powerful each pulse is how long each pulse and how many of them per unit time. But the answer is certainly in the not very significant albeit nonzero range. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/168 "2021-03-06T17:22:46Z")
Yes, that nation. It’s not like an impact would make every volcano on the planet erupt at once. It’ll certainly trigger volcanic activity at the point of impact, and might also trigger it at the antipodal point, but not elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/169 "2021-03-06T18:27:24Z")
Yeah but it would increase volcanic activity over the next six hundred thousand years so they’re doomed! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/170 "2021-03-06T20:37:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > but not elsewhere. That’s highly debatable. Antipodal large-scale volcanism is the big effect, but any 15km impactor is going to make the _whole planet_ ring like a bell, and in the K-Pg event, [large scale seismicity triggered volcanism not just at the antipodes](https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/4/2/eaao2994.full.pdf) but also at other existing sites of magmatic activity. Specifically the mid-ocean ridges. My, _what_ island nation sits not _just_ on a hotspot, but _also_ a mid-ocean ridge? > [@DSeid](#): > > Yeah but it would increase volcanic activity over the next six hundred thousand years so they’re doomed! Sarcasm coupled with lack of substantive reply duly noted. It’s amusing that you’re implying there’d be an impact, and then things only slowly ramp up over hundreds of thousands of years. The biggest effects will be a _lot_ sooner than that, and _then_ tail off. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/171 "2021-03-06T20:54:12Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > All you need is someplace that remains habitable in a bad winter You also need someplace that’s not on fire or under water. And it might be a really bad winter; as in, ten feet of snow on the roof, or even glaciers. > [@Chronos](#): > > with enough food and fuel stored for a few years, and defensible from other people who want to have that food and fuel instead of you. That’s not going to be any ordinary house. There are certainly some already-existing bunkers. How many of the people who make it into them would be people emotionally stable enough to make it through their time in the bunker is another question – and bear in mind that one or two homicidal people per bunker might finish off everybody else in there. You need everybody in there to be able to stand up under extreme emotional stress – much less of a problem in previous bottlenecks, in which those in one group would have had no idea what had or hadn’t happened to everybody else. > [@Zakalwe](#): > > If you took 1% of humans (~78M) and scattered them in groups of 10-100 spread over half the planet, where the average distance between the initial groups was about 50 miles AND THEN took away all travel except foot, no it’s not. You’re talking about a world-wide population equivalent to around 2000 BC, but not in stable populations with developed infrastructure, rather in tiny isolated groups. Humanity lasts 30-40 years and then it’s sayonara. Some _humans_ will live longer, but as a species? No. Now arguing the other side: if enough of us for a breeding population make it 30-40 years, then I’d say we’d have quite a good chance of surviving as a species. Scattered groups of 10-100 with no travel except by foot and no developed infrastructure was how we started out, after all. The problem is that almost nobody knows any longer how to stay alive like that; and there’s a whole lot that needs knowing in order to pull it off. Anybody who manages 40 years is going to have figured a lot of it out, however; and anywhere that people survived the first results of impact is going to have at least some tools and food also surviving in that area to give them a bit of a start. If the asteroid’s big enough, I figure we’re toast. Exactly how big is big enough, I don’t know. And some of it might be pure chance: does a surviving group carrying essential genetics move into a radioactive area they didn’t know about? do they wind up in the same spot as somebody who’s decided God meant to kill us all off and they’re supposed to help that along? do they get hit by a tornado, and the ones who survive that include only one possible child-producer, who then dies in childbirth? But in any case: “modern society” is gonna be gone. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/172 "2021-03-06T22:09:10Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > The problem is that almost nobody knows any longer how to stay alive like that; and there’s a whole lot that needs knowing in order to pull it off. I don’t know that traditional survival skills are going to be of that much use. Hunting and foraging won’t do you any good when the forests are all burned to a crisp and most of the animals are dead. We will need to depend on technology to keep us alive, and it will be the skills to build and maintain that technology that will be necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/173 "2021-03-06T22:15:37Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Sarcasm coupled with lack of substantive reply duly noted. **Moderating** Let’s avoid snark in this forum. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/174 "2021-03-06T22:20:39Z")
The [substantive reply was given higher up in the thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/130), in which citations were provided that explained how the time course was NOT impact and immediate explosive volcanism, but, possibly, impact and apparently changes in currents that resulted in the Deccan Traps being sent into eruptive high gear, increasing volcanism to over its then extant high baseline for the next hundreds of thousands of years. Meanwhile other data exists that the big volcanic pulse that possibly contributed to the extinction event occurred tens of thousands of years _before_ the impact. Yes, I thought your response to the hundreds of thousands of years time course of > [@MrDibble](#): > > I never said human extinction would be an instantaneous event was meant to be a joke actually! (Not snark this, I did.) [Another post](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/116) cited a model which demonstrates the limited immediate effect of such an impact in terms of ground displacement, tsunamis, and seismic and volcanic activity, was also cited. So while you state with certainty and authority that the biggest effects would be “sooner” and “then tail off” but there is no apparent actual BASIS for that statement. In fact there is **NO evidence** of an immediate pulse in volcanism occurring _at the time of impact or immediately after_. . . Change of tack here … **Let’s imagine** an impact to be is identified, determined to be one that would destroy all or most human life, and it is determined that there is no avoiding it. No fighting the hypothetical. What are the alternatives to preserve modern humanity given many decades to develop some options? Given that such an option might be humanity’s only hope for survival as a species short of civilization being set back to HG or at least very early agricultural stages. Under such motivated conditions: How far into the future is it to colonize Mars or another location in the solar system? How far into the future is it to imagine creating a storage bank of embryos and seeds of humans and critical species with an AI able to monitor conditions (from space perhaps), landing, doing a few generations of planting autonomously, and then raising and educating a generation of humans (see _Mother_ with a different trigger of the events, or even _Raised by Wolves_ with an ark landing back on Earth)? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/175 "2021-03-06T22:22:24Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I don’t know that traditional survival skills are going to be of that much use. Hunting and foraging won’t do you any good when the forests are all burned to a crisp and most of the animals are dead. That’s a point. Another point is that much of that knowledge is location-dependent; not just ‘how to find water’ but ‘where is the spring that doesn’t run dry.’ But in a disaster like that the spring that doesn’t run dry may well run dry, or have become fouled or inaccessible. ‘How to find water’ and ‘how to tell if it’s safe to drink’ are still going to matter, though – although techniques that depend on the presence of specific other species may not work. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > We will need to depend on technology to keep us alive, and it will be the skills to build and maintain that technology that will be necessary. We’d also have to figure out the other stuff; because we’d be unlikely to have the population levels needed to sustain the technology we’ve been using. Some technology, yes. We’ve needed some technology since we were Habilis, if not before. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2021, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/176 "2021-03-07T06:00:13Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > **NO evidence** of an immediate pulse in volcanism occurring _at the time of impact or immediately after_ . I never said “immediately”, just “sooner [than all 600 000 years]”. I’m a geologist, though - “sooner” to me is still many thousands of years. Hell, so’s “instantly” . Most of the mechanisms of seismic-triggered volcanism aren’t slow-burn effects. That’s what [the most current thinking](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21166-8) on this with regards to “ordinary” seismic-induced volcanism shows, never mind how compounded that would be by an event the size of a dinosaur-killer. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > The problem is that almost nobody knows any longer how to stay alive like that; and there’s a whole lot that needs knowing in order to pull it off. This is my take on it, too. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > We will need to depend on technology to keep us alive Then we’re dead. Modern technology is a pyramid, reliant on lots of people at the unconsidered base. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2021, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/177 "2021-03-07T14:14:24Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That’s what [the most current thinking](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21166-8) on this with regards to “ordinary” seismic-induced volcanism shows, never mind how compounded that would be by an event the size of a dinosaur-killer. The proposed mechanism of possible impact induced increases in volcanism are not normal “ordinary” seismic-induced mechanisms compounded; it is a fundamental change in geothermal currents. But here is the disconnect- > [@MrDibble](#): > > “sooner” to me is still many thousands of years. Hell, so’s “instantly” . The only possible geologically “sooner” is the identified pulse in activity 10,000 years BEFORE impact. But hey let’s assume they’re wrong and it was 10,000 years after. As a hypothetical. A flipped sign! Instant as that might be geologically, it is a long long time for human development. 10,000 years ago was pre pottery Neolithic with most of humanity scattered HG and a few larger settlements in the Fertile Crescent. Cultivation of grains was soon to spread out but has not yet. Multiple human civilizations rose and fell in a geological blink. Instant as that might be geologically it’s a long long long time compared to the expected length of any global winter. (A geologic burp ago, 100,000 years, Homo sapiens were likely just starting the main modern dispersal migration out of Africa.) Humanity will develop in unimaginable ways in the thousands of years that is a geological blink, assuming that we don’t drive our own extinction first. It won’t stay in one place geographically or technologically. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2021, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/178 "2021-03-07T14:24:14Z")
One factor is that IF enough animals survive that are worth hunting for their meat, any people surviving in the U.S. would have access to plenty of guns and ammo to hunt them with. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2021, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/179 "2021-03-07T14:33:07Z")
If there’s a full scale firestorm, wouldn’t that ammo mostly have gone off? (Serious question; that’s an area in which I’ve got only minimal knowledge.) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2021, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/180 "2021-03-07T15:03:37Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > The proposed mechanism of possible impact induced increases in volcanism are not normal “ordinary” seismic-induced mechanisms compounded; it is a fundamental change in geothermal currents. That’s the mechanism for the antipodal melting. I’m saying you’ll see that _and_ global “ordinary but upscaled” effects _as well_. That being the reason I’d want to be nowhere _near_ any current active volcanism. Sure, it _might_ not be set off. I don’t gamble. > [@DSeid](#): > > The only possible geologically “sooner” is the identified pulse in activity 10,000 years BEFORE impact. Well, that’s just not true. I’ve already linked to one piece showing clear post-impact effects. > [@DSeid](#): > > Instant as that might be geologically, it is a long long time for human development. 10,000 years ago was pre pottery Neolithic with most of humanity scattered HG and a few larger settlements in the Fertile Crescent. Yes, that’s what “bombed back into the Stone Age” means, whether it’s real bombs or a 15km rock. Or is it your assertion that the bits of modern society that survive are just going to continue, only reduced in size? In which case - see my above post about pyramids. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856.md?page=10)