Does anyone know anything more scientific about this? About the chances of an impact?
Interesting.
Posted by Erik Slaine (Member # 5583) on :
It's happened before. It will happen again. But with this one, I like our odds. At least they are tracking it, and we have till 2014, which gives us both time and opportunity to do something about it.
Unless we decide to nuke each other into oblivion, and the odds are getting worse in our favor on that every day....
Posted by celia60 (Member # 2039) on :
That gives me about a decade to either finish this degree and apply for astronaut training or drop out and start working on an oil digging crew. Either way, have no fear!
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
I recommend the oil crew, celia. Much more lucrative these days.
-Bok
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Ah, that one is nothing. You should be worried about the one that is coming 3/06/2880 known as 1950 DA.
Seriously, the last time there was an extinction level asteroid? 65 million years ago. I think we'll make if. Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Hey batter, hey batter---Swing.
Give Sova a big enough bat, and we won't have anything to worry about.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Here is a slightly more in depth article.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
Heh... I wrote my short story for Phobos on an asteroid collision with Earth... Interesting.
Posted by Evie3217 (Member # 5426) on :
ON MAN! Now it's stuck in my head!
*hums to herself* It's the end of the world as we know it.....
Posted by Professor Funk (Member # 5608) on :
After that last, more in-depth article, it really doesn't seem like such a newsworthy event.
Guess I will have to keep my day job.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I'd better make the best of my eleven and a half years left on this earth then.
Now's a good time to start building that bunker in Greenland.
The probability that it will collide with the earth is so small. I'm so much more likely to die in a car crash or even a plane crash that get hit by an asteroid.
Also, I think if the asteroid is going to hit the earth we should give it a better name.
Interesting and diverting, but I'm not at all worried.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Slaine is right, it has happened before and will happen again, unless our technology stops it. And Teshi is right, the probability of this one killing you is slim compared to car accidents or cardiovascular disease (one of these will probably do me in.)
Also, it seems small enough that it wouldn't trigger a nuclear winter scenario and massive die-off. My guess would be if it hit, it would a kill only 20% (only 1 billion) of humans. Only, hah. So that's about 1:5 million odds from this one rock. There have been odds calculated for an extinction-level event from any random asteroid or comet happening, if I can find that I'll post it.
A comet could be worse, because we would likely have less chance to find it before it came too close to do anything to deflect it. The further an object is from collision the less force is neccesary to deflect it.
For a great apocalyptic (you know you're a cynic when you can spell apocalyptic) novel with a comet hitting the Earth, read Lucifer's Hammer by Niven and Pournelle, one of my favorite novels from high school.
[edit to add links: U. of Colorado astronomy siteThis site claims a 1km asteroid could set off mass extinctions. Also has a cool galactic plane oscillation theory for mass extinctions I've never seen before. wikipedia's def. of mass extinction Holocene extinctionsThis wikipedia entry claims humans in the past 10,000 years have wiped out more species than an asteroid!
[ September 03, 2003, 02:12 AM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
I thought This was actually the scariest thing I've heard in a while, asteroids not withstanding.
Posted by Professor Funk (Member # 5608) on :
That was bizarre. That sounds like the plot for a really bad B movie.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Looks like this particular asteroid is going to miss us.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Does anyone know all the words?
Six o' clock, TV hour, don't get caught...
Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
Leonard Berstein!
That's all I remember any more. Sang it like the dickens in college, though.
This whole "We're going to get destroyed, wait, I forgot to carry the zero, no we are not" is getting to me. More frightening: Governor Ahnold.
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