well I found a neat tool you can play with:
http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth
The sad fact is that anything big enough to shift the axis of the earth would make the dinosaur killer look like a wet firecracker.
So we are left running with 'no more seasons' due to massive environmental fallout (I'm willing to swallow that dumping that much energy into the atmosphere will change things for decades unless a climatologist and a astrophysicist want to explain why it won't work).
But if you are looking for ways to dump massive amounts of heat (to melt the ice cap) into the atmosphere, then doing a bit of reading on the Tunguska event. It blew up mid air and dumped almost all it's energy into heating the surrounding area.
Regarding the possibility of the 5cm impactor being made of something significantly denser than iron. Neutron star stuff won't survive on small scales, the electromagnetic forces would make it expand to normal matter sizes without gravity to hold it together.
[I hope this sounds cognizant, I can never tell how coherent I sound at late at night]
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth
The sad fact is that anything big enough to shift the axis of the earth would make the dinosaur killer look like a wet firecracker.
So we are left running with 'no more seasons' due to massive environmental fallout (I'm willing to swallow that dumping that much energy into the atmosphere will change things for decades unless a climatologist and a astrophysicist want to explain why it won't work).
But if you are looking for ways to dump massive amounts of heat (to melt the ice cap) into the atmosphere, then doing a bit of reading on the Tunguska event. It blew up mid air and dumped almost all it's energy into heating the surrounding area.
Regarding the possibility of the 5cm impactor being made of something significantly denser than iron. Neutron star stuff won't survive on small scales, the electromagnetic forces would make it expand to normal matter sizes without gravity to hold it together.
[I hope this sounds cognizant, I can never tell how coherent I sound at late at night]
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy