Slashdot Mirror
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."
Gosh - I looked everywhere on Google News and practically every mainstream source said just about nothing about this story! Why could that be?
(and, even weirder, the ones that -do- mention it are dated days ago and talk abut an "actually miniscule probability". can't they read?!)
I guess I'll just have to turn to Slashdot for all my eschatological news.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
If I understand it correctly the reason is simple, and someone commented on this in one of the other postings:
They knew the rough area in which the asteroid could end up, and with more data this area kept shrinking. However, the Earth was still in this area and since the total places the thing could go was shrinking the chance of going to one part of the area increased. Then suddenly the Earth went out of this area so it's probability went down.
Here is an analogy: think of having ten cups face down with a ball under one and one is labeled "Earth". Now Earth has a 1 in 10 chance of having the ball. However, if someone removed 5 of the false cups then Earth now has a 1 in 5 chance. However, if someone now removed the Earth cup since it did not have a ball then it's chance would go down to 0.
Based on Mayan mythology 2012 is the year when the gods decide whether or not to allow humanity to exist for the next 10,000 years. So if we get past 2012 I guess we're alright.
The four previous peoples of the earth were wiped out by jaguars, hurricanes, fires, and finally a great flood. Middle-eastern religions document the flood as well. The Popul Vuh has many interesting parallels to the Torah/Pentateuch making it a disturbing read. The best explanation for that starts out with "If Newton and Liebniz could separately invent calculus, and both the lightbulb and phonograph were seperately created while nearly identical..." And remember, the reason Cortez got away with what he did is because they thought he was the second coming of their saviour.
Direct away from face when opening.
While we joke, what would the government(s) do if they knew that there was a near certain collision scheduled for sometime in the long-term future?
They certainly wouldn't publicise it. Instead, they'd probably cover it up. The other option is to tell everyone and as such, bring the world to a grinding halt later on and certainly change society drastically in the short and medium term. Who would bother planning anything for the future - pension, education etc would all stop.
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I looked this morning and it was at a 2.7% chance to hit us with 176 observations. The google cache http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:m0pn5fcePc8J: neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html+&hl=en shows the 2.2% chance with 169 observations. Now we are only using 118 observations (although spread across more days) which suddenly suggest less of a chance of impact. I'm not suggesting a comspiracy, but I'd like to know why 58 or more observations are now deemed invalid for use in analysis.
An asteroid which is still far away is worrying people to death. While i agree we should be prapared for this, there are other dangers as well. For example the Sundays earthquake and tsunami which has killed around 30000 across south east asia. The earthquake has caused a big change in the tektonic plates of australia and india and scientists are worried that this may be the first in the series of quakes and eruptions which will be much more widespread across the globe. Imaging coastel towns all over the pacific and indian oceans ravaged by 100feet high waves. The impact would be same as an asteroid. And the funny part is we dont have early warning systems etc., and nobody is seriously looking into them
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We use coal, oil, and natural gas because they're CHEAPER than other energy sources. When they actually DO start to run short the price will rise and we'll (incrementally) switch to using something else.
This price increase would have happened already if the US did not spend 10s of billions of dollars annually to facilitate the threat of military violence against oil producing nations if they did not "voluntarily" keep oil cheap.
If you factor that in, then you will find that the price of oil is heavily subsidized by the taxpayer.
In response to your glowing praises of the "free market" I have 3 things to say.
1: the market is NOT free. The free market is a fairy tail we are taught as children so that we dont question how the current regime of multinationals got into power. STATE interferrance. Now that they have achieved power they are quite happy to impose a FREE market on all the Russias and Iraqs (not to mention Colombia, Nicaragua or any other developing nation) of the world because the cards of a free market are massively stacked in favor of the current established global powers. It is state power which imposes IP restrictions against develping nations. State power which dictates the Iraqs economy must be run by the IMF for the next 10 years.
A free market means the US will use military power to supress the price of oil.
How is it that goods can cost drastically different prices in different jurisdictions? A free market? no. State rules put there for the benefit of businesses (most business being owned by a small number of multinationals) which make it a crime to import such good without permission of the copyright/patent holder. Not withstanding that the goods themselves are non infringing.
What is DVD region encoding? Free market?
Who makes it illegal to work and live in the local of your choosing? State power, applied for the benefit of the business community. Where is your free market?
Immigration laws insure cheap labour pools in developing nations.
The Free Market is the mantra of those with economic power. The small player has no chance to compete. And the morality of FREE MARKET (and the threat of sanctions, or a CIA orchestrated military coup) forces developing nations to allow huge multinational corporations to compete "fairly" in their local economies.
Right now state assistance seems to be focused on "stability" and this fantasy free market is getting damn well close to fascism. Corporations act as if profit is a right, and we believe them!
2: saving the earth does not make profit and thus you can never rely on private enterprise to do so.
3: sex drive is human nature. profit drive is learned.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.