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

Not enough time for counter-measures

[jim_v2000]

I have no way of knowing, but at the rate technology is going right now, we'll probably have something capable of blowing the thing into gravel by 2035. Or at least something that we can knock it out of the way with.

I can't even imagine what things will be like in another 30 years...I mean, if in 1915 you told someone that in 30 years a bomb would be built powerful enough to flatten a small city, they'd laugh at you.

Re:Good!

[Camel Pilot]

In general terms, having your collective dna stuck at the bottom of a gravity well relying on the "stability" of a single biosphere is not a a good long term policy.

Re:Good!

[TripMaster Monkey]

When humanity is staring down the barrel of an asteroid strike, then these treaties will probably not be such a big deal...

Besides, whenever has our beloved President ever let a treaty stand in his way?

Re:Orion Project

[Ubergrendle]

WWII was fought over a 6 year timespan. That's with technology that consisted of vacuum tube electronics. And it was in a destructive manner...trying to destroy your opponent's means of production. Plastic, RADAR, laser, jet technology, atomic weapons... all developed in 6 years.

Motivate the human race enough and its ridiculous what we can accomplish. We're 3 generations removed from 'total war' economy. An extinction level event would be sufficient motivation for us to see such economic focus once again.

Re:Our Eulogy

[nmb3000]

sheesh, it's funny people, Funny!

I think the reason some Funny posts get modded Insightful, Informative, Whatever is because starting sometime ago Funny mods no longer improve your karma. Thus to counteract, if a post already has a few Funny mods, a moderator might mod it Informative to boost the poster's karma a bit.

Makes some sense to me. After all, Funny comments in /. stories are most of the reason I read comments. A real knee-slapper deservers a bit of karma methinks :)