We are in the range of 1 in 42 chance that it will impact earth. Projected explosive force of 40MT. Only the third rock to make it above a 1 on the Torino scale.
"May you live in interesting times" is that curse, right?
We are in the range of 1 in 42 chance that it will impact earth. Projected explosive force of 40MT. Only the third rock to make it above a 1 on the Torino scale.
"May you live in interesting times" is that curse, right?
Even with 1-2% odds of impact it's not a very scary problem since there are several relatively easy and cheap options for deflecting asteroids and there's no short-term or long-term economic incentive in allowing it to hit. Scary problems are the ones we can't get our asses in gear to do anything about, or worse yet ones that we foolishly rush toward, because there's some profit to be made in creating and/or neglecting them.
If space launches were to somehow get cheap enough (maybe with a spinlaunch or EM catapult system) and global governance got crappy enough to enable a Don't Look Up type scenario where the asteroid could be profitably mined if it were found to be made of precious metals and there was then an incentive to bring it closer to Earth instead of deflecting it, the situation could get a lot scarier.
Only 10% of the earths landmass is inhabited. So that times the amount of water we have time the impact percentage is pretty darn small in a human timescale.
On the timescale of the cosmos its a blip and it will happen eventually.
Is there a way to increase the odds of it hitting?
I'm pitching my tent over here in the DGAB camp
wearymicrobe said:Only 10% of the earths landmass is inhabited. So that times the amount of water we have time the impact percentage is pretty darn small in a human timescale.
On the timescale of the cosmos its a blip and it will happen eventually.
An asteroid hitting an ocean or lake could cause tsunamis in all directions, so a large part of the uninhabited area is a place you probably don't want an asteroid to strike. The best-case scenario might be a Tunguska 2.0 where an asteroid knocking down a forest in the ass-end of nowhere metaphorically does not make a sound.
Just remember:
Training oil drillers to be astronauts is easier than training astronauts to be drillers.
Also, all we need to do if we are worried is give it a weeeeeee bit of a push (the sooner the better).
Stampie said:Is there a way to increase the odds of it hitting?
Beat me to it.
Stampie said:Is there a way to increase the odds of it hitting?
You know it'll land DIRECTLY on top of you, right?
The odds of it keep increasing, yes, but that is the way these things work. Think of it as a target circle, with the Earth occupying a certain amount of space inside that circle. As you get more information about the orbit of the asteroid, the target circle gets smaller and smaller. If the Earth is still inside that new, smaller circle then the odds go up. If it isn't then they go down to zero.
So the odds will go up and up until one of two things happens, either it drops all the way to zero and it disappears from the news, or it hits us.
(actually there is a third option -- this asteroid is small enough that we could launch a mission to deflect it.)
Stampie said:Is there a way to increase the odds of it hitting?
What was that movie franchise where a bunch of kids cheated Death but where hunted down and each died a horrible death because "Death Won't Be Denied"?
No matter what, change the trajectory of the Domesday meteoroid and it might miss us the next pass, but on the next pass after that, it will nail us. Kiss Your Ass Goodbye.
It's great comfort to me to know that with each passing year, my chances of dying of a meteor impact is quickly dropping to zero.
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