Reverse Chaos Theory 12/11/08

I was sitting in Astronomy class the other day zoning out (the class is incredibly stupid. You have to be an idiot not to get an A) and started thinking about comets and them impacting earth like I usually do in hopes that it happens one day soon, when I thought about this:

Chaos Theory is basically the name to the idea that small actions have big consequences. We like to use this a lot in alternate history. The classic example is that a butterfly flaps its wings off the coast of Brazil. Minute changes in the air current and pressure begin to cause variations in the entire climate that simply get bigger and bigger and bigger until, like a chain of dominoes, they react all together to form a Hurricane off the coast of Florida.

Or howabout a more historical example: Brigadier Charles Fitzclarence isn't machine gunned to death in 1916. The man was strong, charismatic, and a genius. Unfortunately, none of that helped him when the German army riddled him with bullets in France. Of course... say that gunner is shot before Fitzclarence. A simple displacement of another bullet. Fitzclarence lives. Goes back to England and becomes Prime Minister instead of Winston Chamberlain. Instead of appeasing Hitler's Germany in Czechoslovakia, he calls Hitler's bluff, saying he will not allow the Sudetenland to be invaded. The War of 1938 last weeks. Germany is redestroyed, and the 50 million otherwise dead are more or less saved.

What does this have to do with Astronomy? Chaos theory is the essence of astronomy. Everything exerts a force on everything else; be it gravity, radiation, magnetism, or simple blunt force. Say an asteroid just the right size is struck by a comet going just the right velocity. That asteroid begins to hurtle towards the sun where it'll be incinerated by the immense fusion energy.

As it's hurtling towards Sol, it passes Mars. Mars' gravity pulls the asteroid just enough so that the asteroid moves just enough so that it's on a collision course with Earth. Yep, just like that, we're all dead. Of course, Mars has to be in just the right position to be just fast enough to pull the asteroid with the right amount of gravity to cause a bull's-eye. Then again, a few hours later, Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos could move the asteroid just enough so that it misses the earth and heads for the sun.

I came around to thinking that maybe it could work the opposite way... imagine you could take a gold ball (a completely temperature-proof gold ball) and put it on a tee in the ground. And that asteroid is just the right size and approaches the earth at just the right angle. The friction of the atmosphere, slows down the asteroid just enough to allow the angle of the asteroid's approach to the Earth and the gravity of the sun to cause the asteroid to come so close to the Earth... that it knocks the golf ball off the tee and continues on course to the sun without ever touching the Earth's surface.

Is it possible?

I'm no mathmetician, but again, everything would have to be perfect. I figurered there HAS to be a point between hitting the earth, and coming juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust close enough to still miss. Gravity may be powerful... but it can't be all powerful.

Honestly, this really has almost no other application. I just thought it was really awesome to think about.

12/11/08