Slashdot Mirror
New Asteroid Becomes Earth's Biggest Threat
inexion wrote to mention a story on PhysOrg stating that we're all doomed. "A space rock capable of sub-continent scale devastation has about a one in 1,000 risk of colliding with Earth early next century, the highest of any known asteroid, watchers said on Thursday. The rock, 2004 VD17, is about 500 metres (yards) long and has a mass of nearly a billion tonnes, which -- if it were to impact -- would deliver 10,000 megatonnes of energy, equivalent to all the world's nuclear weapons. Spotted on November 27 2004, VD 17 was swiftly identified as rock that potentially crossed Earth's orbit, with a 1 in 3,000 risk of collision on May 4 2102."
For anyone interested in the hard numbers, here's NASA's impact risk summary of 2004 VD17.
Funny. If I go to google.com and type in '2004 VD17' and then click the "I'm feeling lucky" button, I end up in the same place. What a coincidence!
For those like myself who prefer pretty pictures, here's the 3D orbit diagram of 2004 VD17 (Java required).
Huh. So after I go to the 'I'm Feeling Lucky page, if I click on the big '2004 VD17' link in the middle of the page, I end up at the very same place you linked.
This is really strange. It's almost as if you just googled the topic and put the first returned site and then the first link in that site as some kind of generous contribution to slashdot readers, who apparently must lack the ability to use google. What's even more amazing is that even with all that time you spent goo^H^H^H researching those links, you still managed to get first post.