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2004 MN4 Asteroid Odds Inching Up Again
bfwebster writes "The latest update from NASA now gives 2004 MN4 a 1-in-37 chance (probability of 2.7%) of hitting Earth on April 13, 2029. That's a bump up from the 1-in-46 (2.2%) odds given this weekend and almost a 10x increase in probability from the original 1-in-300 odds announced late last week. Interesting times, indeed."
Well actually, yes. And this has been covered here before.
Yes, April 13, 2029 is a Friday.
John.
If it misses the first time, it has 40 more chances to hit. The good news is that the other chances are substantially less than the first.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Space.com says it will take a few months, unless they use Arecibo's radar--which would really help norrow the orbit.
From article summary: Interesting times, indeed.
"May you live in interesting times"! Aha! I get it! It's a clever ancient Chinese proverb with a double-meaning!
Wait - no it isn't.
Brought to you by the Slashdot FactCheck 2004 coalition - preventing inaccuracy before it starts!
9.7e-07, not 9.7e-02. I take it you failed high school chemistry?
I think this one is about 1000 feet across, not the 16 foot one mentioned the other day
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The odds that any asteroid would hit on a Friday the 13 are (roughly) one in 7 * 31 = 217
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
Yeah, I did notice the 9.4.
;-)
I also noticed the e-7.
DOOM! GLOOM! Oh, except a 390m asteroid would not destroy the moon, or even necessarily alter its orbit (much). The moon has a mass of 7.35E22 kg! It is a very large rock.
I'm pretty sure this isn't the one. This is 1,300 feet, not 16.
And the server's name is NEO standing for Near Earth Object.
I ran it through the calculator for a 400 meter asteroid (from the article) made of dense rock (assumed) at 17 km/s and 45 degree impact (suggested by the calculator). I also dropped it in 1000 m of water, as it has a 75% chance of landing in the oceans.
Results
- Impact Energy: 1.23 x 10^19 Joules
- Crater Formed in Seafloor: 2.46 km diameter
- Earthquake: 6.0 on Richter Scale
- Radiant Flux at 100 km: 7.68 times that of sun
Numbers should, of course, be taken with a grain of saltCrazy, I was just checking my bookmark on this when the slashdot article popped up. Anyways..
Here is the wikipedia page explaining the Torino Scale. I still wouldn't worry about it until the thing hit at least a 8 or so. The article gives a nice explanation of what astronomers would do in warning the governments in the event they thought this thing deserved any real attention.
Torino ScaleTry not to let life get in the way of living.
1 in 37! Nice. =)
(Roulette has 18 black, 18 red, and 1 green for those not in the know.)
Education is the silver bullet.
This isn't Hollywood, it's highly unlikely we would actually consider blowing it into little pieces. What is far more likely is that we'd try and give the thing a series of small taps at strategic points in its orbit to deflect it. Also, you'd more likely want to try and nudge an object not so much into a different orbit, but to change the angle of inclination. If the orrbit is changed to that it is mostly above or or below the plane of Earth's orbit and passes through it at a safe distance from the actual orbit, then the risk is permanently removed.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Actually Good Friday falls on March 30 in 2029. Unless you happen to be on the Orthodox calander, in which case it falls on April 6.
Just in case you still aren't sure, despite 20 other posters verifying this fact, April 13, 2029 is indeed Friday the 13th.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply
duplicating what has already been said.
Are you sure? If the original poster is correct and the impact energy is half a gigaton, then it will be comparable to the energy released in the earthquake, which was about 1.8 gigatons, also according to slashdot. Of course, slashdot is not exactly a reliable source for these kinds of things.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
It isnt going to hit the moon, as it is on the other side of the earth when the asteroid is suposed to hit.
If the asteroid gets too close, all we have to do is hook it up to a cable or dsl line, and post an article about emulating a C64 under a homebrew nintendo close running a linux port onto the asteroid. then link it from slashdot.
we'll be fine.
Zhu Guangya is a physicist and is a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He has been instrumental in shaping China's development programs for the A-bomb and the H-bomb. Being a strategic scientist, Zhu has helped create the country's long-term development of defense technology.
Noting his crucial role in country's technological development Lu Yongxiang, president of china handed over a certificate of asteroid possession to Zhu at ceremony and workshop last Sunday.
http://www.aisnota.com/slashdot/ Welcome to Logic and the Future
At least some of us aren't on Windows. :)
user @ amd64 (/user) cal 4 2029
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Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
This particular asteroid is not big enough to cause problems on a global scale. On the other hand, it could probably destroy a large city or create a tsunami, so it isn't something to shrug off either.
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.
First, my apology that I made an error in the previous post. The actual energy requied to move a 300m cube (with density of 3 g/cm3) laterally at 1km/s is about 4e16 joules (I shamefully admit that I forgot about SI unit).
Now let's fix up some bad concepts here. First, a detonation of a hydrogen bomb will provide impulse force, neither constant or gradual. Second, there is no mass in gamma ray (it's a photon). Alpha particles will be produced but it's insignificant compared to the asteriod, so we can omit them out of our consideration.
Now taking your number (thanks by the way), 1 mega ton TNT is about 4e15 joules. And like I said, a half of radiation just simply escapes away from the asteroid. Now suppose if the efficiency of radiative momenta is 100% (which is very unlikely, but let's assume that), then it would take 20 mega-ton TNTs at a minimum to give it a little push.
But again, the 100% efficiency is unlikely. Some photons will part its energy into heat, or re-radiated away. So for the safety factor, I'd feel confident if we are to deploy about 10x, or 200 mega-ton TNTs simultaneously.
It's not an impossible number, perhaps.
(ps. I ignore many physics here; the asteroid is bounded by the Sun's gravity and so its potential field must be taken into account as well..well, I will worry about that when NASA comes knocking my door for help).
Yes, some, possibly. But keep in mind that a decent-sized nuclear blast should be enough to fully vaporise that rock. Most of the vapor will be dispersed over a WIDE area (just how wide depends entirely upon how far away it is from Earth when destroyed). And most of that vapor will have a trajectory significantly altered from the original path of the asteroid, and will miss Earth entirely. The real key is to hit it when it's well away from Earth, and preferrably well away from the Earth's orbital plane.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Latest NASA update shows limited chance of impact.
1 in 56,000.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html I don't know what happened, but it's suddenly a 0 on the torino scale, etc. And impact date has changed to being 2039+... could that mean a return trip from the sun or something? Whatever happens, seems this story is over.
And, in fact, hitting the page now (15:30 Pacific time), it's clear that the risk is gone; the object is now a Torino 0 (for all projected future encounters).
The probability is now way down: 2e-5
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html
I'm told this is due to identifying the asteroid on pre-discovery archival images.
It seems the updated measerments striked it out from the list. Torino 0, cumulative probability 1.8e-5
FYI.
/ neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html
"JPL has updated its 2004 MN4 risk assessment, dropping its Torino Scale rating to zero, and eliminating completely all impact solutions before the year 2037. Overall impact probability is put at one in 55,556. "
Source:
http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/news.htm
http:/
Move along, nothing to see here.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html
Which is has, apparently since this posting.
I finally got back in to NASA, and MN4 is now a Torino 0 object, with the 2029 event gone entirely.
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.