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

Re:Too bad...

[agent dero]

Human destiny lies with the stars, simply because eventually the Planet Earth will no longer be able to support human life, soon then later at our current population and resource expenditure.

While this may be true, you have to wonder if it's a good thing to venture into other worlds now, I mean, look at our world.
Our main fuel source is a non-renewable, polluting one that won't last us into the next century. We still have billions of people living in utter poverty, and children aspire to be rock stars, and the likes.

I don't think our (american/european) culture is ready to venture into space and colonize, we need to start putting value on the right ideals. To where children aspire to be scientists, to where the best idea wins out, not the shiniest one, to where corporations and people in general terms aren't "out to make a buck."

I'd hate to see these ideals brought into space. Militarization of space? No thanks.

We could support many more billions of people on the planet if the right alternatives were taken to sustain life, and not just make money

Media restraint?

[sdo1]

Could it be that the mass media actually showed a reasonable amount of restraint on covering this story until more information was in hand? In the previous Slashdot stories posted on this subject, there was a lot of complaining about "What aren't the major media outlets covering this story?!?!?"

Well, this is why. The data is/was incomplete. The calculations are/were preliminary and ever-changing based on new observations. There was no point in starting a panic and sensationalizing the story at this point.

Sometimes we, the readers/contributors of Slashdot aren't as collectively bright as we think we are.

-S

Re:Too bad...

[MBGMorden]

You're essentially saying that we, as a people, shouldn't colonize space until our world culture matches your own ideals. Children wanting to be scientists instead of rock stars is not inherently better; it's just your opinion. There are plenty of people out there would would say we have to wait until children dream of becoming ministers/laborers/politicians when they grow up. What we have then are two problems with your argument: A) there is no perfect cultural state. Everything is subjective, and for your version of a perfect world to come true then someone else's view of a corrupted world has come to pass. B) even if there was some perfect state we could achieve, it would be utter insanity to wait until we acheived this until we colonize space. If we always waited for everything to be right before moving on then we would NEVER get anywhere. China didn't wait to invent paper; Guttenburg didn't wait to invent the printing press. We move on, and hopefully get better as we go.

Re:Darn!

[Junior J. Junior III]

Some scientists would surely double-check, even if it's just for practice. I'd think amateur astronomers would, as well. There's bound to be a lot of interest in this object.

Putting out a press release isn't all that hard. Gettting any attention from it is somewhat more hard. But it'd be by far more productive to get the findings published in a peer reviewed journal of science -- physics or astronomy.

And thankfully, there are still news agencies, space agencies, AND nuclear powers which all operate outside of US jurisdiction. So that should come as a comfort to any who worry that the government is handing us a snowjob.

If this sucker is really going to hit us, it won't be kept a secret forever, and there are others who have the power to do something about it if the US decides to sit on its hands. Whether they will or not is of course another matter.