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."

Comments

Numbers And Pictures

[TripMaster Monkey]

For anyone interested in the hard numbers, here's NASA's impact risk summary of 2004 VD17.

For those like myself who prefer pretty pictures, here's the 3D orbit diagram of 2004 VD17 (Java required).

Re:500 Meters = 500 Yards??

[cbelt3]

And so NOW how do you feel about our ability to calculate probability ?

"NASA Scientists reveal same computer used for ill-fated Mars Orbiter now used to compute asteroid orbits. Announces probability of collision with Earth to be 'like, maybe, we dunno. Kilometers, miles, who the hell understands all this metric crap anyway ? Please just increase our budget and we'll stop trying to scare you !"