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Closest approach with the nominal orbit down to 86 702 km (53 874 miles).
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html

Correction - Neptune was farther from Pluto from January 21, 1979 to Feb. 11, 1999 [nasa.gov] but at this time Pluto is farther from the sun than Neptune.

Of course, there's debate as to whether Pluto-Charon is a planet with a moon, or a double planet...

- Thomas;

mg

Ask the dinos if asteroids were important. Wait, there aren't any dinos. Huh. How about that?

Just because some people haven't the imagination and foresight to properly slot asteroid impact priorities, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. They'll want to survive, even if they aren't very bright. That's an instinct that transcends the median IQ line, even if comprehension doesn't.

check it out here.

that must be the lamest cgi script i've seen in my life...

This page shows the dividing line, the probability needed to bring one from Torino 4 to Torino 5 depends on the kinetic energy as well. The current energy estimate I see at the NASA 2004 MN4 site is 1.6e3 MT, which puts us about (I'll guess here) a fifth of the way from 1e3 to 1e4 (as 1.6^5 = 10.48576, love them powers of two), so it's about 6/15ths (2/5ths) of the way between 1e2 and 1e5 MT, the upper bound of the Torino 4/5 box. It's kinda hard to figure how things transition on the probability scale there, but 2/5ths would clearly be to the right of the 10% mark. So I'll spitball that the dividing line is kinda sorta 15% at current energy levels. Your guess may vary.

This page shows the dividing line, the probability needed to bring one from Torino 4 to Torino 5 depends on the kinetic energy as well. The current energy estimate I see at the NASA 2004 MN4 site is 1.6e3 MT, which puts us about (I'll guess here) a fifth of the way from 1e3 to 1e4 (as 1.6^5 = 10.48576, love them powers of two), so it's about 6/15ths (2/5ths) of the way between 1e2 and 1e5 MT, the upper bound of the Torino 4/5 box. It's kinda hard to figure how things transition on the probability scale there, but 2/5ths would clearly be to the right of the 10% mark. So I'll spitball that the dividing line is kinda sorta 15% at current energy levels. Your guess may vary.

You have just been hoaxed I bellieve.

Just look at the URL closely. this has got to be a joke on slashdot.

replace the 1 with whatever you like and voila, instant impact probabilty to scare your freinds with.

Actual image of huygens receding from cassini here. Or right here---> [ .]

does anyone think maybe this is a hoax and that when the probability reaches 1, there will be some new product, like Microsoft-asteroid-proof backup announced? Me thinks so!

does anyone think maybe this is a hoax and that when the probability reaches 1, there will be some new product, like Microsoft-asteroid-proof backup announced? Me thinks so!

does anyone think maybe this is a hoax and that when the probability reaches 1, there will be some new product, like Microsoft-asteroid-proof backup announced? Me thinks so!

Here's a little animation showing what you're talking about.

does anyone think maybe this is a hoax and that when the probability reaches 1, there will be some new product, like Microsoft-asteroid-proof backup announced? Me thinks so!

AS I WRITE THIS THE PROBABILITY HAS BECOME 1 in 4 Hitting earth.

does anyone think maybe this is a hoax and that when the probability reaches 1, there will be some new product, like Microsoft-asteroid-proof backup announced? Me thinks so!

Lookie! Here is a page with an EXPLANATION of what a 99.9% probability of impact is. Please don't let this post scare you.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ip?9.99e-01
Or was this guy just looking for a funny mod? Eh.

Cassini didn't take decades to get to Saturn. It was launched Oct. 15, 1997. It entered orbit on June 30, 2004.

They just upped the chance of impact significantly...I can't believe this isn't making bigger news!

Updated Impact Probability

1950 DA previously had the highest calculated chance of impact--about a 1 in 300 chance in 2880. It had the previous highest rating on the Palermo Scale, 0.17. Although it's a larger rock, its chances of smacking into our homeworld are still lower than 2004 MN4, which ranks about 1.03 on the scale. To get some idea of what these numbers mean, here's a quickie overview from the fine eggheads at JPL. Short version if I understand it correctly: it measures the odds of impact compared to the background level odds of a random hit from an undetected object of similar characteristics.

Yep, the news media should have gobs of fun with this on Monday.

1950 DA previously had the highest calculated chance of impact--about a 1 in 300 chance in 2880. It had the previous highest rating on the Palermo Scale, 0.17. Although it's a larger rock, its chances of smacking into our homeworld are still lower than 2004 MN4, which ranks about 1.03 on the scale. To get some idea of what these numbers mean, here's a quickie overview from the fine eggheads at JPL. Short version if I understand it correctly: it measures the odds of impact compared to the background level odds of a random hit from an undetected object of similar characteristics.

Yep, the news media should have gobs of fun with this on Monday.

On the other hand, in the unlikely case where a particular potential impact event persists until the orbit is relatively well constrained, the impact probability and associated risk will tend to increase as observations are added. This is not too paradoxical: If an asteroid is indeed going to come very near the Earth then a collision cannot be ruled out early on. The impact probability will tend to grow as the orbit is refined and alternative and safer trajectories are eliminated. Eventually, the impact probability will drop (usually quite abruptly) to zero or, if the asteroid is really on a collision trajectory, it will continue to grow until it reaches 100%.

So which one of us should forward the link to CNN?

The probability estimate needs to be refined to account for the Yorp effect.

Further observations will show approximately what 2004MN4 is made of. I have hope that it's a rocky body with quality ores such as nickel/iron... but only a Deep impact style probe would give us truly hard data.

Now, if you look at the orbital plot, you'll note just how close this rock is right now... and how close it gets not just on april 13, 2029.

While the newspapers and the slashdot articles are focused on the potential impact energy, (m*v), I'm far more interested in m.

This rock has more mass than mankind has put into space since the beginning of the Space age; far, far more mass than is projected to be in the International Space station. And there it goes by, whizzing overhead, on near miss after near miss, for the next couple centuries.

Assume 2004MN is 1% nickel. Earth value of 8,000,000 tonnes of nickel is: 12,200,000,000 US dollars. (well, until the nickel futures market crashes harder than this asteroid will). Value of any material, if it were in earth orbit, is 10,000/lb and that's too many zeros for me to type here. For just the nickel. Oxygen is even more valuable. Slag is valuable.

If we just had a booster on the pad with enough oomph, we could get a probe there in a matter of weeks.

IF this asteroid contains valuable materials (be they platinum, iron, nickel, gold, oxygen, or carbon), it would be a bonanza for mankind's space efforts.

Divert Dawn (launch date 06/06), or Deep Impact (launch date 01/12/05). Let's Find out!

This asteroid (and many other NEAs like it) is not just a threat, but an opportunity. It's an opportunity to get a leg up into space.

Can we afford to take a look? Can we afford not to?

The probability estimate needs to be refined to account for the Yorp effect.

Further observations will show approximately what 2004MN4 is made of. I have hope that it's a rocky body with quality ores such as nickel/iron... but only a Deep impact style probe would give us truly hard data.

Now, if you look at the orbital plot, you'll note just how close this rock is right now... and how close it gets not just on april 13, 2029.

While the newspapers and the slashdot articles are focused on the potential impact energy, (m*v), I'm far more interested in m.

This rock has more mass than mankind has put into space since the beginning of the Space age; far, far more mass than is projected to be in the International Space station. And there it goes by, whizzing overhead, on near miss after near miss, for the next couple centuries.

Assume 2004MN is 1% nickel. Earth value of 8,000,000 tonnes of nickel is: 12,200,000,000 US dollars. (well, until the nickel futures market crashes harder than this asteroid will). Value of any material, if it were in earth orbit, is 10,000/lb and that's too many zeros for me to type here. For just the nickel. Oxygen is even more valuable. Slag is valuable.

If we just had a booster on the pad with enough oomph, we could get a probe there in a matter of weeks.

IF this asteroid contains valuable materials (be they platinum, iron, nickel, gold, oxygen, or carbon), it would be a bonanza for mankind's space efforts.

Divert Dawn (launch date 06/06), or Deep Impact (launch date 01/12/05). Let's Find out!

This asteroid (and many other NEAs like it) is not just a threat, but an opportunity. It's an opportunity to get a leg up into space.

Can we afford to take a look? Can we afford not to?

The probability estimate needs to be refined to account for the Yorp effect.

Further observations will show approximately what 2004MN4 is made of. I have hope that it's a rocky body with quality ores such as nickel/iron... but only a Deep impact style probe would give us truly hard data.

Now, if you look at the orbital plot, you'll note just how close this rock is right now... and how close it gets not just on april 13, 2029.

While the newspapers and the slashdot articles are focused on the potential impact energy, (m*v), I'm far more interested in m.

This rock has more mass than mankind has put into space since the beginning of the Space age; far, far more mass than is projected to be in the International Space station. And there it goes by, whizzing overhead, on near miss after near miss, for the next couple centuries.

Assume 2004MN is 1% nickel. Earth value of 8,000,000 tonnes of nickel is: 12,200,000,000 US dollars. (well, until the nickel futures market crashes harder than this asteroid will). Value of any material, if it were in earth orbit, is 10,000/lb and that's too many zeros for me to type here. For just the nickel. Oxygen is even more valuable. Slag is valuable.

If we just had a booster on the pad with enough oomph, we could get a probe there in a matter of weeks.

IF this asteroid contains valuable materials (be they platinum, iron, nickel, gold, oxygen, or carbon), it would be a bonanza for mankind's space efforts.

Divert Dawn (launch date 06/06), or Deep Impact (launch date 01/12/05). Let's Find out!

This asteroid (and many other NEAs like it) is not just a threat, but an opportunity. It's an opportunity to get a leg up into space.

Can we afford to take a look? Can we afford not to?

The probability estimate needs to be refined to account for the Yorp effect.

Further observations will show approximately what 2004MN4 is made of. I have hope that it's a rocky body with quality ores such as nickel/iron... but only a Deep impact style probe would give us truly hard data.

Now, if you look at the orbital plot, you'll note just how close this rock is right now... and how close it gets not just on april 13, 2029.

While the newspapers and the slashdot articles are focused on the potential impact energy, (m*v), I'm far more interested in m.

This rock has more mass than mankind has put into space since the beginning of the Space age; far, far more mass than is projected to be in the International Space station. And there it goes by, whizzing overhead, on near miss after near miss, for the next couple centuries.

Assume 2004MN is 1% nickel. Earth value of 8,000,000 tonnes of nickel is: 12,200,000,000 US dollars. (well, until the nickel futures market crashes harder than this asteroid will). Value of any material, if it were in earth orbit, is 10,000/lb and that's too many zeros for me to type here. For just the nickel. Oxygen is even more valuable. Slag is valuable.

If we just had a booster on the pad with enough oomph, we could get a probe there in a matter of weeks.

IF this asteroid contains valuable materials (be they platinum, iron, nickel, gold, oxygen, or carbon), it would be a bonanza for mankind's space efforts.

Divert Dawn (launch date 06/06), or Deep Impact (launch date 01/12/05). Let's Find out!

This asteroid (and many other NEAs like it) is not just a threat, but an opportunity. It's an opportunity to get a leg up into space.

Can we afford to take a look? Can we afford not to?

"The asteroids that are potentially the most hazardous because they can closely approach the Earth are also the objects that could be most easily exploited for raw materials. These raw materials could be used in developing the space structures and in generating the rocket fuel that will be required to explore and colonize our solar system in the twenty-first century....

It has been estimated that the mineral wealth resident in the belt of asteroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter would be equivalent to about 100 billion dollars for every person on Earth today."

So, potentially, the way to lure a fleet of rockets to cope with the asteroids with evil orbits is the oldest lure of all - cash for strip mining and nudging the orbit into a safe position.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm/

We're close neighbors (NASA simulation) of 2004 MN4. A spacecraft ought to be sent to slice and dice this rock before it cuts in front of us. It's an excellent opportunity for making a test.

What kind of techniques may be used? Bomb? Laser? Drill? Garrote? Chainsaw, even?

The uncertainty is a long strip that is 0.018 (see NEODyS) of the Earth's radius wide, and many times the Earth's radius long. Go look at:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/images/2004mn4b.gif

If the odds don't go down to zero soon, someone will calculate where the stripe of uncertainty is on the globe. It wouldn't be hard to do.

I think you better take a look at this: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/gif/mea-orbit-big.gif

Oh my God!. It's 100% now! Where is Superman when we need it?

wasn't taken with WFCAM, though...

Hey, now it's 100%!

Link Here

Look, the chances are now 1 in 2!!!

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ip?0.5e-0

Actually, it's not. The URL just lets you plug in any scientific notation number. Hope I didn't alarm you too much. =)

impact probability now 1/12

The way I see it, we've got about 24 years to party before the world ends. Have another glögg!

Seriously, if it hits 5 or greater on the scale, then we'll have reason to really worry. In the meantime, it's sufficient to just watch and see what happens. As phreakuencies pointed out, right now there's a 97.8% chance of absolutely nothing happening.

I presume you found the 1 in 45 chance at this page: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html

I've been checking an alternate NEO site, and they're reporting a 1 in 43 chance: http://newton.dm.unipi.it/cgi-bin/neodys/neoibo?ri skpage:0;main

I don't know which site is reporting the most recent data.

Based on last night's observations, the impact risk is now up to 1-in-42: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html

I found an online tool to compute estimated positions of the 2004 MN4 asteroid according to the known estimates of its orbit. See http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=2004+MN4 .

I ran it backwards in 3-month intervals looking for times that 2004 MN4 has last been near Earth. By this data, there was a very near pass by Earth around April 16-19, 1967.

So I looked through a catalog of lunar launches. The NASA lunar probe Surveyor 3 was launched April 17, 1967.

This alone is not sufficient to prove that 2004 MN4 is a booster from Surveyor 3. (Logic still dictates that the scenario of 2004 MN4 being a threatening asteroid is still a possibility on the table.) But with a coincidence as shown in these numbers, Surveyor 3 must be considered in any investigation into 2004 MN4.

I found an online tool to compute estimated positions of the 2004 MN4 asteroid according to the known estimates of its orbit. See http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=2004+MN4 .

I ran it backwards in 3-month intervals looking for times that 2004 MN4 has last been near Earth. By this data, there was a very near pass by Earth around April 16-19, 1967.

So I looked through a catalog of lunar launches. The NASA lunar probe Surveyor 3 was launched April 17, 1967.

This alone is not sufficient to prove that 2004 MN4 is a booster from Surveyor 3. (Logic still dictates that the scenario of 2004 MN4 being a threatening asteroid is still a possibility on the table.) But with a coincidence as shown in these numbers, Surveyor 3 must be considered in any investigation into 2004 MN4.

The problem was not explosive bolts. The likely cause improper mounting of the gravity-switches that would have started off the parachute deployment. It hasn't been determined if the problem was that they were put in backwards by the technicians contrary to the plans or if the plans were not clear enough. The Mishap Investigation Board is still working on determining the cause and procedures to fix the problems. See their Status Report #4.

All is not lost though. Some of the samples were salvaged.

The problem was not explosive bolts. The likely cause improper mounting of the gravity-switches that would have started off the parachute deployment. It hasn't been determined if the problem was that they were put in backwards by the technicians contrary to the plans or if the plans were not clear enough. The Mishap Investigation Board is still working on determining the cause and procedures to fix the problems. See their Status Report #4.

All is not lost though. Some of the samples were salvaged.

The IBM 360/91 was an important high-performance member of the IBM 360 family. The CDC 6600 was also an innovative system from the same era.

The Space Shuttle uses the IBM AP-101. See Computers in Spaceflight: The NASA Experience.

Two links that will answer your questions. Look at the pretty pictures describing the cloud of probabilities.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news146.html
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html

An interesting page to play with is here: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

I think it would be very bad if one were living close to Yellowstone and having the impact close to the caldera. Put in the values for 2004MN4 at a distance of 50 km. Assume it is a density of 2600 kg/m3, hits the lake of 30m depth and at an angle of 50 degrees. The effects are quite devastating without having factored in the effects on such an impact on Yellowstone's caldera.

Now, if you put in a density of 6000 kg, it gets really interesting!

Two links that will answer your questions. Look at the pretty pictures describing the cloud of probabilities.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news146.html
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html

An interesting page to play with is here: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

I think it would be very bad if one were living close to Yellowstone and having the impact close to the caldera. Put in the values for 2004MN4 at a distance of 50 km. Assume it is a density of 2600 kg/m3, hits the lake of 30m depth and at an angle of 50 degrees. The effects are quite devastating without having factored in the effects on such an impact on Yellowstone's caldera.

Now, if you put in a density of 6000 kg, it gets really interesting!

According to this press release it detached successfully.

Don't be stupid, it's just precipitation.

You can watch NASA's live stream from thier site, here

The Nationwide Asteroid Threat Level is:

YELLOW: Elevated

Level 4 on the Torino scale means:

Current calculations give a 1% or greater chance of collision capable of regional devestation. Most likely, new telescoping observations will lead to re-assignment to level 0.

Amateur astronomers, please do your part to reduce the probability of impact by taking new measurements of the asteroid's position every night until the probability of impact is less than 1.0e-06. You can track your collective progress using this chart, which shows the current probability at 1.6e-02.