Guest Blue Posted April 16, 2008 Report Share Posted April 16, 2008 A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth...there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth...NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000..." This article scares me on multiple levels - at least four that I can think of. Let's start with the two most obvious. First we have the blurb below... "Both NASA and Marquardt agree that if the asteroid does collide with earth, it will create a ball of iron and iridium 320 metres (1049 feet) wide and weighing 200 billion tonnes, which will crash into the Atlantic Ocean. The shockwaves from that would create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely..." Uh, I am not one of "them-there-bona-fide-scientist-types" but this seems bad. Really bad. Of course, it doesn't look like the bona fide scientists are hitting the ball out of the park, bringing us to point number 2... Is anyone else concerned that the fate of the human race appears to be dependant on a 13-year-old German schoolboy checking their work?. To quote from the movie Armageddon - "you're NASA for crying out loud, you put a man on the moon, you're geniuses! " And that quote brings us to my third area of concern - life should not imitate the big screen. As discussed earlier in the week, if it is going to happen I want it to be a movie like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Nothing against Armageddon and Deep Impact, but I will take killer rabbits over killer asteroids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LAW_* Posted April 16, 2008 Report Share Posted April 16, 2008 This does not appear to be corrected at NASA. While trajectory knowledge was substantially corrected by the Arecibo data, a small estimated chance of impact (less than 1 in 45,000 using standard dynamical models) remained for April 13, 2036. With Apophis probably too close to the Sun to be measured by optical telescopes until 2011, and too distant for useful radar measurement until 2013, the underlying physics of Apophis' motion were considered to better understand the hazard. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/apophis/ Are you sure about this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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