Chance for a Tunguska Sized Impact on Mars

Multiple users have written to tell us of an LA Times report that an asteroid may hit Mars on January 30th. The asteroid is roughly 160 feet across, and JPL-based researchers say that it will have a 1-in-75 chance of striking Mars. Those odds are very high for this type of event, and scientists are hoping to witness an impact of a similar scope to the Tunguska disaster. From the LA Times: "Because scientists have never observed an asteroid impact -- the closest thing being the 1994 collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy with Jupiter -- such a collision on Mars would produce a 'scientific bonanza,' Chesley said."

Comments

Re:Bad for studying Mars?

[rogeroger]

Tunguska= Tesla I thought everybody knew Tunguska Event was a last-ditch effort by Nikola Tesla to prove his directed-beam device to J P Morgan so he could get funds to continue experimenting at Shoreham on Long Island. J P was unimpressed and Tesla was shit up the creek. It seems that in the century hence we should be able to replicate his experiments and cause a Tunguska style event on Mars, the moon, the Afgan desert, or wherever (for scientific study)