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Earth's Asteroid Risk Downgraded
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!"
Man, I guess I won't have to worry about any rocks smaller than 1km big, it's not like they'll do any real damage.
Will this finally put an end to all those damn asteroid-hitting-the-Earth movies?
Please?
That the dinosaur version of Slashdot released that same story on the Jurassicnet just 48 hours before they left the earth.
That still gives you 100 yrs, right?
Seriously, tho, that would be one of statistician's largest pet peeves: thinking that because outcome X has not occured at all in a period in which it is predicted to occur, that X is overdue to occur. IIRC, this is the Gambler's Fallacy. Somehow I'm reminded of the joke where three statisticians go duck hunting. First one shoots, and misses- too high. Second one shoots, and misses- too low. Third one yells, "We got 'em!"
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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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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.
(The preceding text is brought to you by the Tin-Foil Society for Public Awareness, have a nice day.)
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>>I mean, there hasn't been a rock that large hitting us in, like, 599,000 years...
>That still gives you 100 yrs, right?
Glad to see the future of science and engineering is in good hands!
> "Relax, everyone - the risk of a gigantic asteroid colliding with Earth just got smaller!"
Surely the risk hasn't changed, just our estimate of it...
-- "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong." -- HL Mencken
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.
After watching 'The elegant universe' (<--- torrent links)I can trade in my fear for an continent sized asteroid hitting earth for the more bleeding-edge fear of a new 'Big Bang' occuring. :) No rest for the paranoid.
Couldn't we send in a team of negotiators to try reasoning with it ? Maybe offer it a bribe to hit the next planet along ? If all else fails we could try mocking it.