Asteroid 2004 MN4 May Hit Earth After All

ControlFreal writes "Asteroid 2004 MN4 was introduced earlier on Slashdot, and although scientists are now fairly certain that is will miss earth on April 13th, 2029, the modification to its orbit caused by Earth's gravity may still cause an impact one or a couple of orbits further down the road, the Times reports; the impact probabilities in 2035, 2036 of 2037 will not be known until the exact modification to its orbit is known; in 2029, that is. By then it may be too late for effective counter-measures. An impact would cause an energy release equivalent to about 1 Gigaton of TNT (~4e+18 Joule), and while that won't cause a massive extinction event, it causes widespread devastation. More info on 2004 MN4 can be found here and here."

Comments

Re:I really hope not

[Shihar]

This is just paranoid. The only things that would make earth a worse place to live in the mars as it is now are the same things that make everything within a few light years to live in. Lets say DinoKiller 2 was to strike earth, where would you rather be? If you say Mars (or any other place in the solar system), you need to rethink things a little.

I would much rather rather be deep underground or undersea then on some wasteland like Mars. The simple fact of the matter is that there is NOTHING short of the all out destruction of this planet that could possibly remove the massive quanties of water, carbon, and all those wonderful organics that we love. Even if the entire surface of earth was turned into ash by a massive strike, earth would still have more water and carbon then we know what to do with. Mars on the other hand will always be a cold dead wasteland without an atmosphere.

If preservation of the species really is your concern, I would suggest a deep sea colony. All the water you could possibly want, and if anything goes wrong, you are just never far from help. Further, if the world is wiped out, a deepl see colony is roughly the safest place you could be.