Asteroid Given Highest Potential Impact Rating So Far

[Kadie]

Asteroid Given Highest Potential Impact Rating So Far
Experts Say Mathematical Chances It Will Hit Are Small

POSTED: 5:09 pm EST December 23, 2004
UPDATED: 5:20 pm EST December 23, 2004

LOS ANGELES -- Scientists say you shouldn't worry, but there is a small chance that an asteroid could hit Earth 25 years from now.

The asteroid is about the length of four football fields and has just received a rating of "two" on a 10-point scale that predicts impact.

Until now, no asteroid has received a rating higher than one.

But scientists stressed that more data could easily downgrade that rating. Overall, they said it is unlikely that the asteroid could hit.

more...
http://www.thekcrachannel.com/news/4022134/detail.html

[htuttle]

1. It better be unlikely

Because 25 years isn't nearly enough time to figure out how to deflect it.

[SmileyBoy]

6. 25 years is actually plenty of time.

If it was 5 years, then it wouldn't be enough time.

[htuttle]

7. Consider that we'd waste half of that time arguing about it first

Then we'd have to develop technology we don't really even have yet. The asteroid would be so much closer by that point that it would be much, much harder to deflect.

Maybe fifty or seventy years, we'd have enough time at this point. Fifty would be cutting it very close.

Hopefully, our reaction time will improve. To be honest, I don't see any other point to the evolution of the opposable thumb.

[SmileyBoy]

9. I saw in a documentary that 10 years or more would be sufficient...

...to plot a course/trajectory to deflect it or destroy it. But who would want to destroy it anyway???

And actually, the technology already exists to deflect it. NASA's JPL has come up with a solar wind parachute attached to a probe that would be deployed once the probe grabbed onto the asteroid, and the solar wind would literally carry the thing out of the solar system.

[htuttle]

11. That's ten productive years

I've seen the solar sail idea, and it's a good one. We'd also need to intercept it very far away, because the sail won't move the asteroid very fast.

OTOH, I was very pleased when they managed to get NEAR-Shoemaker to 'land' on Eros. It's good to know we can hit a target that small that far away.

I'm confident in humanities' ability to learn how to deflect all manner of asteroids someday. However, I'm not confident in our ability to work together to do so at this point. And thanks to some popular action movies, I think too many people assume we can do this now, so don't give it any urgency.

[HEyHEY]

13. Four football fields? Just send a nuke or two at it

[Osamasux]

2. I say start preventive measures now.

Launch the Chimp on an intercept course.

[Jesus H. Christ]

3. They should fix that scale.

Given how ignorant most Americans are, I'll bet a bunch of people are going to read that as a 20% chance it will hit.

[iconoclastic cat]

4. I, for one, welcome this planet-killing asteriod.

Yeee-yah!

[Goathead]

5. Wait there is a smudge next to the 2...

Holy shit! That's a fucking zero. Impact rating of 20!!! Were all going to fucking die! Were all going to fucking die!:nopity: :nuke:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. Allow me to rephrase:

We're all going to die fucking! We're all going to die fucking!

(I don't know you, but that's what I'd do.)

[SmileyBoy]

8. It wouldn't be an Earth-killer, either.

An life-extincting asteroid would have to be at least 3 miles in diameter. At only a quarter of a mile, it would most likely cause damage to a 300-mile radius if it hit land, or created a pretty large tsunami if it hit water, but it would not trigger global nuclear winter.

I will say that I am very pleased that scientists and astronomers are able to track these things a lot more than they could even 10 years ago, and that we're educating ourselves to a great extent about this kind of threat. It's a good thing that we're understanding these things.

[MisterP]

10. there's a neato impact calculator available:

http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/content/investigations/es2506/es2506page08.cfm?chapter_no=investigation
For example, Chicxulub was 200M megatons and sprayed North America with flaming debris, setting much of it on fire.
long-term effects at http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/horsts/paine_indochina.pdf