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Earth's Asteroid Risk Downgraded

Posted by simoniker on from the i-was-worried-for-a-while dept.

xanthines-R-yummy writes "Relax, everyone - the risk of a gigantic asteroid colliding with Earth just got smaller! Nature reports: "A new survey revises down the likelihood of a massive asteroid hitting the Earth by 20-30%. We're only due to collide with rocks larger than one kilometre across roughly once every 600,000 years, it concludes." Whew! What a relief!"

5 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. More importantly... by ohad_l · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How likely are we to be able to nuke 'em once we see them? How likely are we to see those anyway? We've had several near-misses that we only detected after the asteroid passed us...

    --
    If it weren't for fog, the world would run at a really crappy framerate.
    1. Re:More importantly... by fname · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Depends on the advance warning. With 30-40 years notice, we'd probably have time to send out a scout team to characterize the asteroid. Then, we could send a follow on team with the proper explosives and nukes. Hit it soon enough (at least a couple years before collision), and we could deflect it.

      Some folks think that painting it is a better solution. You see, if you paint part of it white, it will deflect the asteroid by about 1 earth-radius 20 years ahead of time. (Less than the margin of error in our guess, most likely. Might knock it into us.) And, to paint a 100-meter or 1-kilometer rock takes A LOT of paint.

      Anyways, the short of it is, if it's an asteroid, we can probably have 100 years notice if it's big enough (not today, but our detection ability is improving). If it's a comet, we might only have a few months notice. Then we'd be in trouble.

  2. THIS made the front page of Slashdot? by Chromodromic · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This must just be an abysmally slow news-for-nerds day or something because, you know, the joke in the post is valid. Did anyone breathe a sigh of genuine relief here? Did anyone go, "Oh, God, well, now I can stop worrying about that!"

    Did anyone see Armageddon and then go home unable to sleep for nights on end?

    I just find it hard to believe that in the vast informational space of the Internet, this is a story that collided with the front page of Slashdot.

    The analysis doesn't change the chance of an asteroid hitting the Earth, points out astronomer Iwan Williams of Queen Mary University of London, UK. "But assuming that there are fewer large asteroids, the damage will be less," he says.

    When news editors say, "Damn it, just print something!", this is what we get.

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    Chr0m0Dr0m!C
  3. But is it a Poisson Process? by mattyp · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It makes a big difference. If it's a Poisson Process, no matter how long we wait, every day our probability of being struck remains the same. If not, every day that we don't get struck, increases our probability for getting struck the next day.

  4. System effects by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You can calculate the energy release, overpressure radius, and so on. You can estimate the casualties and property damage from a half-kilometer disaster.

    My nightmare, though, is having the next Tunguska-sized event happen during the next Cuba-like nuclear crisis.

    It only takes a small rock to do a good short-term simulation of a nuclear weapon going off. If that happened at the wrong place and wrong time, it could trigger indescribable horror.