2004 MN4 Probably Won't Kill Us

Xshare writes "It's now official. NASA's Near Earth Objects page lists 2004 MN4, the asteroid that's been covered on slashdot recently, as having a 1 in 56,000 chance of hitting earth, and even then only in 2037. It seems that earth was near the edge of the cone of probability of when it could go. As the cone kept closing, the probability of hitting earth grew, but it kept getting closer to the edge. It's now outside the cone, and we can be safe."

Comments

Probably wouldn't kill us anyway

[Greyfox]

Even if it did hit it'd be a pretty major disaster but not world-threatening. Though I'd be concerned about it setting off nuclear retaliations from twitchy countries or the Bush Junta.

Not that I'd expect them to tell us if they knew it was going to hit. That'd make the population get all irritable and demand that a method be found by which the asteroid could be deflected (I like the solar sail approach...) but that costs money and takes a lot of effort for something that will happen well after we're all out of office (Except the Bush Junta) so a better plan would be to tell everyone that the chances of it hitting us are astronimical and let our children deal with it. Er... wait...