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Mars Asteroid Impact More Likely Than Before
sheldie writes "The probability of asteroid 2007 WD5 impacting Mars has been revised following further observations. The chance of impact has increased from 1.3% to 3.9%" This is a follow-up to earlier coverage of this asteroid from last week.
That would truly be an amazing event. The science that could be learned in the event of a collision would be massive! I, for one, welcome our planet smashing overlord!
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"BREAKING NEWS! [SFX: Ridiculously melodramatic sounder]
"NASA now says an asteroid impact on Mars is now three times more likely than previously thought.
"At this rate, the impact's likelihood will exceed 150% in just a few days."
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Tell them that if the asteroid just barely misses Mars that its gravitational pull could actually slingshot the rock straight towards earth! You just don't have to tell them what the chances of that are (astronomical would be an accurate value.)
Lets see how many people who failed math we can get to go hide in caves till it passes. :-)
John
See that first picture where the arc of the asteroid makes a flyby right into our orbit, while just passing Mars?
How come the experts cannot mathematically say for certain whether this rock will hit Mars? What's the wildcard in this calculation that injects uncertainty?
Mr. President, we must not allow a gravitationally slingshotted asteroid cave society gap!
My work here is dung.
As the Bad Astronomer notes, the odds of nothing happening have shrunk from 99% to 96%.
Remember how these things work - they made a few observations, from which they made a cone through which they're 95% (or whatever) sure that the asteroid will pass. Mars filled up about 1.3% of that cone, and so they can say that there's a 1.3% chance that Mars will be hit by the asteroid.
A few days later, with better observations, the cone shrinks, and now Mars takes up 3.9% of the cone. As the cone shrinks, Mars will continue to consume a larger and larger portion of it, right up until the time (maybe) that the cone shrinks outside of Mars and they determine that there will be no impact.
So remember, this is not unusual, and *every* non-impact event follows this pattern: Scientists find potential impact. Impact probability increases. Impact probability increases. (maybe a few more repetitions, too) Suddenly, they decide that it's not going to hit, and impact probability goes to zero.
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Biblical fiscal responsibility
2007 TU24 - approaching
Approximate diameter: 319 meters (H=20.131)
Closest Earth approach: 1.44 LD at 0826 UTC on 29 Jan. -----
Inside ten LD of Earth: 24 Jan. until 3 Feb.
Inside Earth's Hill sphere: 27 to 31 Jan.
Closest Moon approach: 2.20 LD at 1533 UTC 29 Jan.
Data based on: JPL SSD orbit solution #13 downloaded 6 Dec.
based on 87 observations spanning 54 days
Optical observation: observed from 13 locations during 53.8661 days
discovered at 0626 UTC on 11 Oct. by the Catalina Sky Survey
last observed at 0313 UTC on 4 Dec. by the Spacewatch 1.8m telescope
This shows that a rock 319m in diameter will pass by the Earth on January 29th 2008, it's closest point will be about 1.4 times the moons orbit or about 357,000 miles. This is VERY VERY close.
Regards
Ed Almos
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
I would imagine 1/10 of the stories it will be used incorrectly on today.
Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
Well then, it's a good thing we're not living there yet, isn't it ?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Is there any information yet on whether Spirit and Opportunity might see anything if there actually is impact - such as maybe seeing the dust rise or even capturing a glimpse of the asteroid in the Martian atmosphere?
But what about 2007 WD40? My bet is that one WILL slip past us! <grin>
is the tons of utter bullshit that Richard Hoagland will then spew about all the fantastic discoveries revealed by the impact, proving that there was an advanced civilization on Mars, that NASA is suppressing.
Dear Jeebus, please let the asteroid hit the "Face On Mars" dead center, just to piss off that con artist Hoagland.
Thanks!
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The asteroid will bust through the surface crust, exposting Mars' nougatty, caramel-filled center.
Yummy.
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
"Of course this would probably cause an interstellar war with the Martians, but still..."
Nah, that war with the Martians ended 65 million years ago, when they blew up the home (5th) planet with their worm hole doomsday device, and both camps of survivors in space settled the only viable candidate planet in this Solar System, Earth. Yes, we are their descendants. LETS TRY REAL HARD NOT TO REPEAT THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE IN A ROW, PEOPLE!
"Never tell me the odds!"
The same object missed us by 5 million miles -- about 1/8 the separation between Earth and Mars orbits -- two months ago and we didn't see it until two weeks later.
rj
Is there any sensible reason to care about moderations? It's something that has escaped me,
but I'm relatively new here so maybe someone could elaborate.
Actually, Murphy's law says that not only will the asteroid miss Mars, it says that the asteroid miss will be precisely enough to whip the rock around to a new orbit. One precisely timed and angled to aim it towards Earth where it will impact on some particularly inconvenient location. Like the 2008 Olympics, the city of Jerusalem, or something else of political import.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
If a comment is modded down far enough, it won't be seen. If a funny or interesting comment is modded "troll" or "offtopic" there's a chance I'll miss a chuckle or worse, Ill miss being enlightened about something.
Then there's the karma thing. I'm not worried about mine, as it seems (so far knock on wood) to be impervious to anything; I get modded troll and offtopic all the time (sometimes they mod me offtopic and they're right, like this one should be) but someone whose karma is merely "good" could miss a chance to have that talk he wants with his fellow slashdotters.
But what rankles me is the ones who mod you down for seemingly no reason. They especially do it to ACs, thinking (I guess) that a negative mod won't hurt someone not logged in, but forgetting that you can check a little box to post AC.
I especially hate being called a troll. Mod me offtopic but damn it, I do NOT troll.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Unfortunately, they don't tell you everything. Sure there's now a 1:25 chance of it striking Mars, but what they don't tell you is that there is 4:1 chance it'll strike somewhere on Mars' darkside. Only those lucky Saturnian Overlords will get a view of it, and we'll have to pay hefty fees for the copyrighted DRMed videos of the impact. And then only on low-def capable viewers. :'(
We should send some of our ELO defense missiles up there and shove a few more 'roids toward Mars. Hey, if we shoot enough at them maybe we can bust up the planet. Be some great fireworks then.
Oh sure, you say, well maybe one of those 'roids will get shoved the wrong way and wind up wiping out Washington state, but hey, there's no great loss there is there?
... In case someone doesn't know what the OP meant [1].
- Gilboa
[1] http://www.nss.org/resources/books/fiction/SF_018_lucifershammer.html