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Simulation of Close Asteroid Fly-By

Posted by Soulskill on from the close-enough-to-feel-the-vacuum-breeze dept.

c0mpliant writes "NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have released a simulation of the path of an asteroid, named Apophis, that will come very close to Earth in 2029 — the closest predicted approach since humans have monitored for such heavenly bodies. The asteroid caused a bit of a scare when astronomers first announced that it would enter Earth's neighborhood some time in the future. However, since that announcement in 2004, more recent calculations have put the odds of collision at 1 in 250,000."

5 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. I could've sworn... by cwiegmann24 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...that the odds were 4 in a million...

  2. Re:Danger... or opportunity? by yincrash · · Score: 3, Insightful

    looking at the simulation, the amount of energy required to bring this into any orbit at all seems really really really high

  3. Re:relative risk by Thanshin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But it is much more probable for the meteorite to kill us all than a succession of lightnings killing each and every human being.

    And not just because after the first few thousand lightning hits we'd start thinking about hiding in caves.

  4. Re:You Pose An Excellent Question, "How Much?" by prgrmr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The laws of thermodynamics are against you.

    And art deco was in the 20's and 30's.

  5. Re:Question by Nyeerrmm · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually this pass (the 2029 close approach) is not a concern at all. The error brackets are brought in well enough that we know it will not impact the Earth, but will pass well within the GEO belt. What we don't know, and when the actual 1/250000 impact risk is, is the next pass, in 2036. If the asteroid passes through what is known as a 'gravitational keyhole' in 2029, the effect of Earth's gravity will actually swing the asteroid back around on an impact path in 2036.

    Right now we can predict where Apophis will be in 2029 fairly well, within a few 10s of kilometers I believe. When you're talking about hitting the Earth, a thousand kilometers or more is good enough precision. The problem is that that during that flyby in 2029, any small uncertainties magnify by a few orders of magnitude, so when you carry it through another 7 years of orbits the uncertainty is 10s of Earth radii instead. Add in uncertainties about the effects of solar wind and the Yarkovsky effect and it just gets more complicated.