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2004 MN4, Even Higher Probability
phreakuencies writes "Worried since the recent post about the MN4 2004 asteroid, I added a bookmark to its 'impact risk' section at NASA. The asteroid started as having a 1/233 probability of hitting earth. Later it raised to 1/63. Daily computations made on 25 Dec raised its chances up to 1/45. Optimists can now say it has a 97.8% probability of missing earth." And Veteran writes " NeoDys offers the 'Orbfit' software package (source code released under the GPL) which can be used to get a pre-release view of the situation with Asteroid 2004MN4."
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.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Which will come first, 2004 MN4 asteroid, or
Duke Nukem Forever?
At first I thought it says " it has a 97.8% probability of hitting earth"
Good thing i read it over again.
Watch how all the end of the world loonies start going crazy and selling all their stuff. Anyone looking to get into the real estate market? Now is the time! first post?
Just to reassure you
http://janus.astro.umd.edu/astro/impact/
The impact comes out as somewhere between 450MT and 1.6GT, depending on speed and composition
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
I hit my 'Freedom 55' retirement and POW!!!! I'm gonna sue somebody. Harrumph!
Come on, bring on the jokes about Nuke Dukem Forever. :)
'nuff said
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
Even if - as is likely - 2004 MN4 is not on course for Earth, the probability of impact will increase with each observation that does not exclude it hitting entirely, as the region of possible places it can be shrinks.
If this trend continues, expect an impact in another 4629 hours, or about 193 days!
It's going to be one hot summer...
;-)
You know in all those movies where some guy, sometimes just an amateur scientist, sees something in his telescope/seismograph/thermometer/disease-modeling -software that all the high-up professionals miss, and rushes in to warn the government?
That doesn't happen.
So kick back and relax in the knowledge that, even if a global catastrophe is imminent, there's fuck-all you can do about it, except make yourself a quick drink.
The coolest voice ever.
"It's coming right for us!" >crash
It's 20+ years out... C'mon... When we get within a year or two and it still has a 97.8% chance, I'll worry. But we've got to prove we can't blow the world up ourself first!
FYI: It is a 400 meter astriod. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/asteroid_2 004_mn4.html
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
1) build spaceship ...
2) build mars habitat (hurry not much time left)
3)
4) profit!
My uncle is really pissed. He made some thought experiment (32 questions) for "if the world was no longer habitable" and the date he picked was just a few years off.
http://32q.com/
If only he had picked the right date, he probably could've started his own cult or something. Then he could use their power to build a space ark and profit, as noted by the guidelines above. Well, back to the drawing board.
Like Teddy with an elephant gun.
I don't see a conspiracy here, and do think we will be missed, but given how much they hyped previous possible events with less statistical support it is curious they aren't doing follow ups. Could just be that it's Christmas, and things in the science departments are on autopilot.
If this thing stays greater than 1/100 by Monday, expect the papers and television to start picking up on it again. There was a close encounter today with 2004-vw14 (something like 5 lunar orbit distance), and the kooks where on the net prophesizing doom (even though it wasn't all that big a rock). It may take some years to really get a bead on where this thing is going, likely going up and down in probability.
Expect no fewer than a dozen Death-Cults if it stays in double-digit probabilities. Do the Darwin Awards cover Death-Cults?
Letter To Iran
Am I just sick, or do other people find the possibility of this thing hitting to be pretty damn exciting? The chaos, the devestation, the panic, the collapse of all social systems... jeez, that would honestly be one of the coolest (And last) things to ever happen in most of our lives. The timeframe is nice too... many of us that are currently in our late 20's, early 30's will be wiped out before things start going really downhill for us (physically), but we'll have enough time to get a decent bit of fun stuff done too. Bring it on!
I don't respond to AC's.
It's important to note that if the chances of impact are 1 in 45, then the chances that future observations will exclude the possibility impact are 44 in 45.
The two events "asteroid hits us" and "we can never exclude the possibility of it hitting us" are equivalent: the first happens if and only if the second happens. Therefore the two events have the same probability.
So the "don't worry" part of the above sentence is pointless: the second half sentence is a mere reformulation of the first; there is no reassuring "extremely high" probability that future observations will correct the number downward.
Let's get the terminology straight here.
Chance is measured in percent. Probability is measured as a decimal or fraction between 0 and 1, with 1 being 100% certainty. Odds are measured as a ratio such as 1,000,000 to 1.
I think it would be something that probably would be averted. I mean think: there's 24 years before this happens. So if it becomes known that it will, for certianty, happen, we have over two decades to solve the problem.
Generally, if we can predict a disaster with enough lead time, the disaster is averted because we work to avert it. This certianly isn't true of everything, but I'd give a pretty good chance that we could come up with something to mitigate the problem of this asteroid in 24 years.
I, for one, will give 100,000-to-1 odds that the favorite, earth, will survive 2004 MN4. Paypal accepted.
The second solution is to load a hydrogen bomb onto a Delta 4 rocket and to send the contraption to the asteroid. Within a mile from impact, explode the hydrogen bomb. The explosion will nudge the asteroid slightly and send it in a direction that avoids earth.
The catch here is that if we utilize a hydrogren bomb in this way, we must quickly replace it. The Chinese military is eagerly looking for any weakness in our conventional or nuclear arsenal and would use such a weakness to exploit us.
From the last post about this, I went and read up on the whole thing. I went to the beautiful CGI script where you input asteroid size and velocity and all that, and assumed I was 100km from the impact.
I had to up the asteroid size to 1300 metres and a velocity of 14kps of dense rock colliding with porous rock before I could interpret the results as something that would suck for me (2nd degree burns on my body from the fireball).
There would be no major earth effects of such an asteroid hitting Earth, so it said.
Compare these stats against our current fearsome asteroid.
In one thread I saw someone refer to this as possibly a human-extinction event. I have a hard time believing that once I actually bother to go check this out. It'd sure suck for everyone within 100km of the impact site but for everyone else, I guess we'd have about the same effects as a major earthquake to deal with.
fifth sigma, inc.
It looks like that server just got hit by a meteorite. Oops.
funny munging
In response to the story about the giant rock hurling through space that is set to devastate our planet in a horrible event, Merry Christmas everyone!
At least if it hits on April 13 we won't have to file our taxes in 2029...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Yeah, Han and the gang are going to trick Darth into moving the Deathstar right into the path of it. Then the DoD will claim it to be a Two for One event.
Now I know this might be a world killer, etc, but someone should be able to tell me with the trajectory it is on, which way the earth would be facing should it hit....
I'm just curious what will be cratered, what will be melted, what will be evaporated, and what will just die.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Bollocks. You just fed the percentage-to-fraction converter with a higher number.
Considering the 2004 US Presidential Elections, it'd be pretty damn ironic if it hit Ohio.
Wonder how the Christian fundamentalists in America would spind THAT.
That calculation has a 1 in 1 chance of being wrong.
Believing something doesn't make it true. Not believing something doesn't make it false.
Pfft. Before that can ever happen, I think we all know that the Stargate team would be able to send the asteroid into hyperspace for just a few seconds, coming out on the other side of the planet (and thus missing it).
Like Teddy with an elephant gun.
Remember Heaven's Gate?
Imagine how much technology boost all the related stuff will receive. If the Moon shot (the pure publicity stunt) generated so much progress, imagine this.
By the time we will know it is going to miss by 500km, we will already have cheap reliable interplanet travel and will be able to melt/mine/whatever the asteroids. Cool.
Dude, Stargate isn't real.
In all seriousness we all know Captain Kirk will find a Klingon bird of pray, fly around the sun to go back in time to get some Wales and snicker bars, then fly out to the asteroid and offer the Snickers bars to the asteroid to get it to not destroy us, while scotty cooks up some wonderful roasted whale to celebrate the saving of the earth.
...we're looking at very little of the sky *at one time*. I don't think it takes much amateur equipment to spot something which would be missed by "normal" study, which usually involved spendning forever looking at one tiny fixed part of the sky to gather enough light/EM to make a clearer picture than the last one (i.e. mapping space).
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
...but I sort of hope it is found to have a much, much higher likelyhood of hitting earth, so much so that's it's almost certain to occur.
Why? Simply because it would post such a great challenge for humankind. It could well bring much greater cooperation between countries, cooperation of a level presently unheard of.
Certainly, I'm not hoping it actually strikes earth, merely that people work together in order to stop it.
Just be glad that Bush won't be the president at the time. If it did hit, in US soil no less, then he'd start pouring billions per month into NASA for the development of spacecraft to fight the alien 'terrorists' who threw that asteroid at America.
Last I checked, that was a 1 in 45.4545 chance, not 1 in 15.
Regards,
Steve
I would imagine, if it came to it, it would be a world effort. The impact of this will devistate the entire world, I wouldn't be surprised if China contributed their own nukes. There is no reason that the United States should be the only one safeguading the sky, its our world.
First thing Monday morning, talk to bank about refinancing house with a 25-year balloon mortgage.
Crivens! At least we now know why to welcome our new absinth overlord that day.
"Nae Kin! Nae Quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna be fooled again!"
Err France will not have a better idea than the U.S. It makes sense for the US to take over here, we have the most experience in space, one of the largest space programs, and the only country to get anything on Mars. Most foreign scientists use our tools simply because of their superiority. I'm sure that other countries will make suggestions, but I'll stick with the country that has the most space experience, the most nukes (and other weapons), and arguably the most intelligent scientists in the world.
Regards,
Steve
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. =)
You know what? I think we need sometime else besides the Torrino scale.
With all those asteroids, it's always the same game: high probability at the start, it goes up or down and after 2 weeks, we've got some numbers that really mean something, but the problem is that during this time, people start freaking out because they would like to hold to some true numbers, not just "probabilities that are bound to change".
So, what we need to communicate with even more weight than those torrino scale numbers is a "measurement progress percentage" and tell everybody "if it's not 100%, don't worry yet". That way, with the always updated percentage number, the masses can reliably hold to something, and know that "progress below 100% means that what we know is not reliable".
Actually, for the current incident, we don't have this number, so I really won't wonder if some people will be freaking out over the next few days.
Astronomers: full exposure it the name of the game! Tell us how long it will take to measure the path, and where you are currently standing!
Thank you.
Oh wait, in 30 years we may be able to move the entire solar system. If we'd just stop sqwabbling over the limited remaining resources of this planet. we get em all except europa right :P
I never said they weren't, in fact I stated that most foreign scientists use our tools. I know this from experience. Tons of foreigners come here for education and for jobs, I have no problem with that, most are very intelligent. In the United States, everyone is an immigrant so its no big deal and highly accepted. I do have a problem when they take advantage of the system, contribute nothing back to the country that gave them the education and instead just export it back home.
Regards,
Steve
Pushing it a fraction off course should make the difference depending on where.
It was funny the first time.
Now it's just stupid.
Oh my god, wrong again! Obviously, Picard would find a time portal to send Data through, where he could then cannabalize his body to build a tachyon emitter that would ionize the asteroid, and send it through a newly discovered wormhole to the delta quadrant.
That is, assuming Count Bakula doesn't get there first, prematurely starting a klingon-earth war.
Like Teddy with an elephant gun.
Do powerful countries will prefer to do nothing to avert making a mistake that could possibly send the asteroid on their head?
What could possibly do a small country in africa if nobody wants to help them?
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
The ISS is what it's name says, an international space station. Russia is doing the lifting now. US may be more sophisticated, but Russia seems more robust.
The most intelligent scientists in the world? Have you been quizzing them? I was not aware scientists had a ranking system. Thanks for making me smile!
or, we can just establish a color-coded threat-level scale. Simple, powerful, well understood by the general public ;-)
Oh my God!. It's 100% now! Where is Superman when we need it?
Anybody known how much chance for a moon impact? That would be so cool to see happen.
Reasoning about probabilities is pretty tricky stuff and even reputable physicists often get it completely wrong. Does anybody have more details (maybe a pointer to a publication) about how they arrived at these estimates and what assumptions went into it?
Every article. How does this happen? Somehow, no matter what the topic, no matter how completely non-related it is to politics, somehow, somebody finds a way to insult Bush. Seriously, the imagination of Slashdot is breathtaking.
That's what the Torino scale measures. Low numbers such as the current asteroid has are nothing to worry about. And 100 % of what? We have no idea what the final observational accuracy will be, partially because we don't even know what technology will be observing it 25 years hence. Additional numbers will make things more confusing, not less.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Here some calculations I made via the Earth Impact Effects Program.
My Parameters: Diameter 390m, Density 3000kg/m^3, Impact Velocity 11 km/s, Angle 45 degrees, Distance from Impact 25 km (sounds acceptably close but not "hey, it hit me on the head" close - if you are closer than that... though luck.)
If it hits Rock:
Final Crater Diameter: 4.87 km = 3.02 miles
The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 5 seconds. Richter Scale Magnitude: 6.6
But watch for the air blast... Max wind velocity: 186 m/s = 416 mph - Multistory wall-bearing buildings will collapse.
If you are at least 100 km away, you will still feel the earth shake and hear the air blast, but little damage will be done.
To sum it up, sorry, nope, humanity won't get extinct if this one hits us, and you won't be too affected unless you are rather close to it (100km) or if it hits water (Tsunami anyone) and you live nearby on the coast.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
Since we're discussing asteroids, here's a link to a 3d asteroid blasting game that my project partner and I made recently for class, using OpenGL. Its not feature complete, and it doesn't show anything for the ending, but its playable.
No data, no cry
"What's everyone so worked up about? So there's a comet, big deal. It'll burn up in our atmosphere and what's ever left will be no bigger than a Chihuahua's head." - Homer Simpson, 2F11, Bart's Comet
What the hell good will picking up some welshman do?
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Would it be wrong to leave a package on it to re-aim it at a later date? Imagine if we had something on a rock going past Earth in 2005. If we could suddenly divert it to take out Pyongyang, should we?
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I know, sorry... English isn't my first language.
Probability is nothing more than a measurement of what we don't know. Since we now know it didn't hit us, the probability was 0.
Someone mentioned in a reply to my previous post, that its scheduled to hit the Eastern Hemisphere. Say it was headed for Beijing, will the US help with sending nukes to the asteroid? Or will they be like.... go ask North Korea?
What if it were to hit central Africa? "All those AIDS people were gonna die anyway". Or what about the Arctic? "Who cares about Eskimos, Canadians and Russians?".
I think the best place for the asteroid to aim would be north Atlantic ocean. With the stakes high for US and Europe, we might finally see a withdrawal from Iraq, unless the president is still Bush, in which case, invading Iran would be a higher priority. "We suspect the Iranians are steering an asteroid... terrorists!".
I wonder if its big enough to alter the Earths orbit, or rotation. If the days will be 24.01 hours instead of 24 hours, or heck we might even be rid of the leap year. Maybe we should aim for that and change the course of the asteroid...
What if there were two asteroids headed for Earth, one coming real close, the next definitely hitting the Earth? Would you invest in an orbital rocket, and try to hitch a ride on the first one to survive? (much less fuel than going to Mars).
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Over the hill Bruce Willis won't be able to save us this time...
You went and spoiled the propable apocalypse for yourself. :| And with the cash that's going into the kids, you could've bought guns and had yourself a grand old time, too!
Damn! Rodney Holmes beat me to it! 1. hear about potential global castastrophe; 2. register domain name; 3. profit!!!!
Where's my Mod points when I need 'em?
I know, I been trolled. Go back under your rock, troll.
When It Counts.
"Me personally think that a hit that would posse good odds of destroying the world would be a great thing for world unity and get the whole planet to work as one to solve the problem, and maybe from that we can learn something."
Ronald Reagan had similar ideas, from what I recall, about the potential unifying power of an invasion of space aliens.
It might make a good script for a B-movie actor like Reagan, but in real life you'd just have destruction and chaos. And maybe not just from the asteroid - people who think they're doomed often behave in a nihilistic manner.
There are numbers besides the Torino scale. The press doesn't use them because they're not as easy to explain. A value of 4 on the Torino scale explicitly means that the public should not be at all concerned or even really aware of the possible impact. It is meant to attract the attention of other astronomers so that more measurements can be done.
As far as a measure of progress, here's a simple one. At 100% progress the probability of impact is either 100% or 0%. Intermediate progress is the width of the window in which the impact might occur. If this window narrows to such a point that it does not include the earth, you get a 0% probability. If the earth is bigger than the entire window, you get a 100% probability. Anything else means there is more work to be done. The rate at which the window narrows will depend on the orbit of the asteroid, but that would give you a rough idea of when you'd be 100% sure.
If you are really curious, the locations and time of every observation that contributes to this is available online. It's interesting to note that more observations were done today than any other day. This is a direct result of the object being identified as an object of interest on the Torino scale.
No, most scientists get education in their own country, and then go to US, usually for a post-doc, where they bring their knowledge, and publish in US teams. They don't take advantage of the system, the US are glad to have them, because basic education in US is crap and expensive. Your knowledge of the research system is very limited apparently.
From what I have seen, most post-graduate work in the space industry is done in the US. Primarly because we have the largest space industry, and consequently it is regularly willing to pay for this type of research. However if you have some actual information to dispute this, I'd love to see it. If you are talking about people from other disciplines entering into the space industry post-doc, you might a point. But in general I doubt most specialists would take this route.
It seems logical that anyone wishing to do post-graduate work in the US would be well serviced to do their undergraduate work here as well. Particularly because they will have longer to identify and exploit any opportunities that may present themselves.
However, I don't think I'd dispute the rather poor quality of primary and secondary education in the US when compared to other specific examples. That said, we still manage to turn out some fairly well-educated students from time to time.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Not so! Most of the Earth's surface is OCEAN. That means there's a 2/3 probability it will hit the ocean.
Oh, great. Just what we need. Even FEWER blue states. Terrific.
We're all going to die!
I see homeland security extends into space upward exponentially. Notice the threat scale is color coded as well. How is the Palermo Scale different from the Torino Scale? The Torino Scale is designed to communicate to the public the risk associated with a future Earth approach by an asteroid or comet. Well if anything our missile defense system can shoot it away with other missiles and sattelites with laser beams attacted to their freaking solar panels.
Tons of foreigners come here for education and for jobs, I have no problem with that, most are very intelligent. In the United States, everyone is an immigrant so its no big deal and highly accepted.
Uhm, as long as you are not muslim, and have olive skin apparently. Or look a bit foregin and have a muslim sounding accent. Or could be suspected of possibly being soft on Islam.
Swedish, but resident in the UK since 1996.
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?
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
I wonder if they search for asteroids that could possibly hit the moon ? If "the big one" hits the moon and causes it to break up, it will suck for us down here anyway.
We'll get some real big speakers and broadcast their voice. The accents will be so inscrutable, that we'll confuse the asteroid into reversing its course.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
USA Today's web site got the story at the 1-60s stage. If the print edition carries the story, it's at the national coverage level.
Google News has the story at the 4th position is Sci/Tech at the moment. That's just below the 3-story coverage on the Google News Front Page.
I think all hell is about to break loose in the news coverage. The NASA and JPL PR staff are probably driving each other crazy tring to prepare, before the Press drive them crazy.
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?
Don't worry, if Kerry had won, there would be tons of jokes about him never being able to decide whether or not to do anything about it.
Just like how everytime the internet is in the news, someone uses the Gore slam.
Just like how everytime Clinton does anything, people make jokes that it is not suitable for the eyes of children.
If you can't take it, don't dish it.
FYI...
When the probability got upgraded from 1.6% to 2.2%, the diameter got downgraded from 440m to 390m.
Roll a d20, if you get 1 ,2, or 3, go to the next step.
Next step: roll d20 again. If you get a 1, 2, or 3, the earth just got hit. -m
--- Learn XForms today: http://xformsinstitute.com
The real problem is, where are we going to find sea bass large enough to attach it to? And are they ill-tempered enough?
Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.
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.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
But he did get the greatest number of popular votes for a presidential candidate - ever.
It was no Ronald Reagan victory for sure, though.
When millions disappear from earth, it's not aliens, it's the rapture.
Reminds me of a joke: "- Why did a mathematician travelled on an airplane carring two bombs?" - Because he knew the odds of ONE bomb being on board a plane was really small."
Any idiot can make craters given a large enough budget.
Now, put it in a Earth capture orbit, and I'll be impressed.
I demand a recount!
Oh, sorry, Bush is in power and has antimeteoric domes to sell.
Just remember to fix the voting system and it won't happen again.
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.
You must be one of those worthless English Teaching Assistants who can't get a real job.
The English language changes as it is used. Not as it existed in some old book.
The density of it must be determined. If it's a solid rock then a bomb may divert it, but some asteroids look like swiss cheese. A nuclear bomb even detonated near it would blow it into a million smaller pieces which would then would cause it to rain large rocks.
I'm not drunk, I just have a speech impediment. And a stomach virus. And an inner ear infection.
According to this calculator the crater would be about 9 kilometers in diameter, It would cause a 7.1 strong earthquake and a 44 m/s shockwave a hundred kilometers from the epicentre. (Assuming 90 degree collision angle and iron composition - basically, the worst.)
Note that this assumes 4940 megatons in kinetic energy, and Nasa says it's "only" 1600.
Before everyone jumps on the "lets nuke it " bandwagon, take into consideration that this things impact velocity is 28,163.0279 mph. Mach 1 at sealevel is 761mph. This thing is running mach 37, and our best attempts at a rocket intercept have gone up in smoke ( if the damn thing even left the launch pad). Hitting this bad boy will be no simple feat. Especialy If NASA is involved. Hell, they did not see 2004 YD5 untill it was leaving our proximity, and it came in between us and some of our geosync satellites.
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
I just checked -- 13 April 2029 is a Friday.
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
Are tidal waves. If this thing hit an ocean it could provoke an insanely huge mega-tsunami.
If it hits water, tidal waves will cause massive destruction.
If it hits in a heavily forested area, it will start a fire that will burn so much that it will create clouds of smoke and ash that will block out the sun for a very long time. That would suck.
Now that we're getting closer to 5%, you can bust out your 20-sided dies and start rolling. For the comet-paranoid, here's a movie rental that will put you at ease: Wet Hot American Summer.
Exactly. Nudging it by a tiny fraction of a mile per hour with 20 years to go will make it clear Earth easily. 1 mph is more than enough with only 1 year to go. Actually, 1/2 mph is more than enough with 1 year to go, assuming you force it to go in the direction closest to missing the Earth, which is to say, nudge it max of half the diameter of the Earth in 1 year.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Merry Christmas. I've got you 2% more of a chance that you're going to die!
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
....You have another factor to consider: the massive amount of debris and dust that will be blown into the atmosphere. We're talking vastly more sun-blotting dust blown into the atmosphere than the Mt. Tambora eruption of 1815, which blew 15 cubic miles of dust into the atmosphere and pretty much eliminated summer in the much of the world for nearly two years. In short, we'll have a much less bright days on Earth for around three years, and agricultural output could be cut by huge margins during these three years, leading to a potential for worldwide starvation by the end of the three years.
:-(
Also, such an impact could trigger off any nearby earthquake fault lines, too, and that could also cause large amounts of destruction far away from the impact point as earthquake faults are triggered off.
There's a potentially big (pun not intended) downside to using a nuclear warhead: it could break the asteroid into smaller pieces, and the "shotgun impact" from a broken asteroid could actually be more devastating than a single impact.
:) ) mining this asteroid after it arrives at the L1 zone.
A better solution is to assemble an large ion rocket in space, then dock it with the asteroid maybe in 2025. Fire off the ion rocket to run for maybe 30-40 days non-stop, and it may change the orbit of the asteroid enough so it misses the Earth at a relative safe range. Maybe by then we'll have even better ion rockets, and the possibility exists we might even slow down the asteroid enough to place it in the L1 zone between the Earth and the Moon. Given the fact that asteroids have very high quality mineral content, someone could make a financial killing (pun not intended
and instant coffee will be banned
you had me at #!
Kerry got the second most, ever. More population means more of everything.
It's like when they trot out the old, "Home ownership is at the highest level..." when the economy is so weak they can't drum up any other stat.
They did that this time around.
"Dipshit" is a little closer.
With ~25 years of planning time it would require such a major cockup on the part of every industrialized nation on planet earth for this thing to hit us that it's not even funny.
"Impact Probability
The probability that the tabulated impact will occur. The probability computation is complex and depends on a number of assumptions that are difficult to verify. For these reasons the stated probability can easily be inaccurate by a factor of a few, and occasionally by a factor of ten or more."
What they don't say is whether the inaccuracy means more or less risk - or both. I assume on either side.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Actually, no one would expect Mr. Bush to help no matter where it fell.
Oh, wait, I forgot about Saudi Arabia...
After all, Dad might be there at any given time...
OTOH, the impact could splash all that oil over to Israel and we wouldn't have to send them all those billions in aid...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
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.
www.DIYTVAntennas.com
of it hitting the moon? And would it cause a major crater?
If I'm reading the table right, there are several risky orbits in years following the "Torino 4" orbit. Give it a nudge and you have to be lucky and skillful not to get another intersecting orbit.
Is anyone else somewhat disturbed by not so much the prediction, but how far out this is predicted to occur?
I mean, saying something is going to hit in 3 years is fine, but the timespan on this collision is extremely long. I would have to say that just because of the variables involved, there's no way they could be accurate worth a damn past 5 years at this point.
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I remember just 2 years ago there was a story on Slashdot about how more money (I'm assuming federal) should go into NEO (Near Earth Object) research because of this massive threat of asteroids hitting the Earth.
Then there was a story about how under-funded it is. I mean, don't get me wrong, but how is a horribly funded institution claiming that some asteroid is going to hit in 30 years anything other than a plea for more funding?
I guess I just don't buy into this "asteroid is going to destroy the Earth" religion. It smacks of a not-so-cleverly-disguised request for more year-end funding.
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see more research done on this, but right now just seems really, really, fishy.
OK, so even if this thing plops onto terra firma it probably won't lead to human extinction...
I know the odds of this thing striking the moon are lower since the moon is smaller and quickly looping around us, but could the effect be more severe if the impact were to happen there?
This asteroid weighs 83 billion Kg (and it could be as much as three times this mass) and is moving about 12,600 m/s. Has anyone done the calculations to see what kind of effect this 'mass exchange' might have on the moon's angular velocity if it struck there?
"Asteroid House: Twenty low-grade celebrities locked in a house at the center of the impact path. Vote for your favorite to leave the House."
"Asteroid Shuttle: Two teams locked in orbital tin cans try to solve engineering challenges which will move their craft out of the asteroid's path."
"Survivor: As Teroid: Contestants try to find or make enough clothing to keep their posteriors covered."
"CSI: Impact Crater: Fictional CSI teams try to appear effective after the real impact..."
But I bet if you're really nice you might get some pity masturbation.
paintball
George Bush decided that Social Security is Just Fine.
paintball
You have just been hoaxed I bellieve.
Just look at the URL closely. this has got to be a joke on slashdot.
neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ip?1replace the 1 with whatever you like and voila, instant impact probabilty to scare your freinds with.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
We need to find out whether or not it is solid rock (or iron!) or a pile of rubble! SO SEND DEEP IMPACT (URL:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/ main/index.html)
It is currently scheduled for a Jan. 12th launch to some random comet, why not use it to determine the makeup of this asteroid instead? Of course this might delay the launch a few(?) months but that is a much shorter delay than building a new impactor probe etc.
This assumes that the Delta rocket has enough delta V to get to this asteroid rather than the comet. My only comment is that since this is an earth orbit crossing asteroid there may be some opportunities in the near future!
Sorry to repost this but... We need to find out whether or not it is solid rock (or iron!) or a pile of rubble! SO SEND DEEP IMPACT (URL:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/ main/index.html)
It is currently scheduled for a Jan. 12th launch to some random comet, why not use it to determine the makeup of this asteroid instead? Of course this might delay the launch a few(?) months but that is a much shorter delay than building a new impactor probe etc.
This assumes that the Delta rocket has enough delta V to get to this asteroid rather than the comet. After checking the orbital plots it looks like it gets close to the earth every year!
They already know that it's not a solid iron object, and is closer to a dense piece of rock. Additonally, its orbital velocity seems to be around 12.59 m/s. While that would speed up, most likely, this is a "slow" meteor, and thus, would be less damaging than the assumed typical meteor speed of 17m/s. Yeah, this thing hitting is going to be for a very bad day for someone, but hardly world ending.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Why did you reply to yourself? o.o;
1) Take a BIG bag of tactical nukes. The briefcase kind. Low-yield (5kT), low area of devastation. This should be quite easy given the number of nukes held by the US/Russia/China et al.
k et) we could generate 4000MW of power for 12mins. Assuming that current tech. allows us to generate 400MW indefinitely, we would need to fire this for 6.6e15/.4e9 = 190 days.
:-D. And we have ~ 23 years to do it...
Get to the asteroid. This should also be pretty easy, its orbital period is pretty close to ours. So not much delta-v required. And I guess it passes us a little more than once a year.
Since this guy has a smaller orbital period than ours, it would be easiest I guess, to decrease the period sufficently to miss the Earth. The impact energy is 1.5GT (from the NASA website).
Major Assumption - if we knock off say 0.001 of the maximum velocity, then we can ensure that the orbit misses us completely. This means that we need to give the asteroid 1.5GT*0.001 = 1.5MT of energy.
If each tactical nuke has 5kT and is exploded about 600m from the center of the asteroid, the energy imparted to the asteroid would be around 4.4% of the total energy (solid angle subtended by the asteroid, on total radiated output). This means that each nuke would impart 0.2kT to the body. Now this will hopefully be small enough that the asteroid doesn't fracture.
Now we need to explode 7500 of these tactical nukes in the same orientation w.r.t the asteroid to get the desired effect. Assuming we can do one explosion a day, gives us just enough time to do this. Hopefully, we could use a larger bomb, or need to give less of a delta-E.
Using an engine of some sort?
The asteroid has kinetic energy of nearly 6.6e18J (mv^2/2 using Vimpact and mass from http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html). Again 0.001 of this would be 6.6e15J of delta-E we have to provide.
With one of the largest nuclear thrusters ever developed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Thermal_Roc
Of course, I'm probably massively screwing up the required energy to deflect the asteroid. But a factor of 10 either way would be acceptable.
So the second approach looks feasible. Minor exercises for the reader - get the nuke rocket there, fix it on, and make sure the thrust is on at the correct times.
But hey, I'm sure we can get Bruce Willis to take on the job
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!
There is no reason that the United States should be the only one safeguading the sky, its our world.
Then you really don't understand the universal hatred and fear that the US has earned in the world.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
And yet, everyone will expect mr Bush to help out if it falls on France.
No, not at all. Bush has set himself up to be the savior of Christianity, not humanity.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
No, I think it's more certain that Geordi will attempt to extend the Enterprise's subspace field around a part of the asteroid in order to reduce its overall mass.
Of course, then we are doomed as the thing would come apart from gravitational shear (according to Q at least).
Actually that brings to mind an interesting question I haven't seen explored yet. There must be many unobserved and unobservable masses floating randomly around out there. Each of these must exert some gravitational influence, right? Yet we have no reliable way to define these nuances other than to observe their effect on other visible bodies.
How can we possibly worry about an event 25 years hence which our current measurments are unable to confirm?
I guess that's why they measure these things in probabilities.
Whenever Mrs. Fitch breaks wind, we beat the dog.
Software manufacturer Microsoft today admitted to another vulnerability in its popular Windows operating system. If left unpatched, a computer may be vulnerable to attacks from big rocks falling from the sky. Dubbed the `Friday the Thirteenth' weakness, the flaw is present on all current versions of Windows.
However, Microsoft has played down reports that this bug may prove disastrous. "Whilst this may cause problems in some isolated instances, we are confident we will have a patch ready shortly," announced Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer." In the meantime, we strongly urge all users of our software to ensure their anti-virus and firewall software is properly configured. Most of all though, don't open unexpected attachments in email and certainly don't attempt to download planetoids from outer space."
Mr Ballmer is also reported to have said that if the Friday the Thirteenth scenario is proven unlikely to occur, developer resources would be redirected to finalising the new Windows Operating System, codenamed Longhorn. Longhorn is expected to be released before the arrival of the Friday the Thirteenth asteroid, due in 2029.
When asked about the security features of the new operating system, Mr Ballmer said, "Competitors have always regarded security as something of a necessity, built in from the ground up. Friday the Thirteenth proves that our `sky-down' approach is far more forward thinking than they may ever have imagined."
Cogito, ergo sig.
Duck and cover! Try covering your head with a newspaper.
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
Just curious, but would that work? Space is mostly vacuum right? Doesn't a nuke work by atoms spliting and hitting other atoms? True some would hit the asteroid, but doesn't much of force come from atoms in atmosphere being split?
How do we know how much force a nuke would create by going off say a mile from an object in space?
Wouldn't hitting object directly produce much more of a splitting action akin to how a jewler hits a diamond with a chisel?
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
several solutions were considered for dealing with threats from bolide collisions like this. One of them was a big bomb. The thing that most people remember is the line from Armageddon where the guy says something like "if you hold a firecracker in your open hand it doesn't hurt you." Well the guys who thought up the nuke solution weren't dumb: its just a matter of how you define "big" in big nuke. Apparently there is no theoretical limit on the yeild of a nuclear device (ie think giga or terra ton yeild instead of megaton.) This changes the analogy from holding a firecracker to holding a bunkerbuster!
Apparently they did not proceed with this idea for fear of some psycho/terrorist setting it off on earth.
check it out here.
that must be the lamest cgi script i've seen in my life...
...that April 13, 2029 is a Friday?
:-) ..bruce..
Not a good omen.
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
Assuming that the thing hits us, we have LOTS more to worry about than only whether we personally get 2nd degree burns from the core fireball. Even if it hits on land, there will be a fairly wide zone of ejecta debris (hot rock) falling, starting fires, etc. If it hits in the ocean, it will be MUCH worse -- think colossal tsunami, as in several hundred feet. 1500 megatons is not the end of the world, but it is nothing to sneeze at.
If we are lucky enough to have it hit in a very sparsely populated land mass, then we have a big fireworks day, and some lingering weather effects (very red sunsets for years, and a cool decade). That is too much to hope for.
Realistically, whether it hits populated land or ocean, it is a mess. Although you may personally escape the impact or tsunami damage, no one will escape the economic damage, which will take years to recover.
Where will it hit? The time will be 9:21PM in London. It is coming at the earth from "behind" in its orbit. So, a 'direct hit' would be on the equator somewhere along the terminator (day/night line). Of course we don't know enough about the orbit to even know if it will hit, so there is as yet no way to tell where it will hit. Roughly any time zone from about GMT+8 to GMT-3 is at risk.
I'm currently choosing to be an optimist, even assuming that more certain observations confirm this to be on a collision course. My hope is that the global nature of the economic disaster will cause the nations of the world to fund a successful deflection mission, which will be cause for great celebration on that particular Friday the 13th.
This makes sense if the delta V on the delta (hah) can be adjusted to handle the change in mission. D.
ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
So, when is 2029-04-13.89?
.89 x 24 = 21.36 hours
.36 x 60 = 21.6 minutes
.6 x 60 = 36 seconds
21:21:36
So in other words, Friday, the 13th April 2029, 9:21 PM.
Closest approach with the nominal orbit down to 86 702 km (53 874 miles).
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html
Of course what we should really do is drop everything and try to capture this into earth orbit - then we would have the ultimate space station!
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
I stand corrected.
And UK is not my home country FYI.
Swedish, but resident in the UK since 1996.
If I may point out - the difference between a "red" state and a "blue" state is typically less than 5% of the population...
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
On the NASA site I simulated up until April 14 2059.. That day scares me..
arghl should have used the preview function.. it's 2052 not 2059..
NEOP of JPL
Two later than 2029 Torino class 2 possibilities remain, even though the news release mentions "no concern".
"So, enlighten me, tell me what you think you know about me, what kind of a person you think I am."
I have no idea what kind of person you are since I do not know you. I can guess that your politics lead to Marxism not just socialism. You seem to hate Christians and Americans equally. You seem to hate me enough to put me on your foe list. You are way to sure of your facts and hate it when someone shows you facts that contradict them and will ignore them since they just distract you from the greater truth that you are sure of. Such as you grossly misstated that most of the Marshal plan where loans when in fact it was mostly grants. The fact that you asked your "friends" if you where just like the Americans you hate and they disagreed with you is funny. You most likely have few friends that have a different view point than your own. Most likely because you feel that anyone that can not see just how right you are is not worth your time or they must be flat out evil.
My one hope is that you actually think that your view might actually help more people than other views. I disagree that one system of government can work in every country. Although I believe they all have to be based on serving the will of the people.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.