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1-in-1,000 Chance of Asteroid Impact In ... 2182?
astroengine writes "Sure, we're looking 172 years into the future, but an international collaboration of scientists have developed two mathematical models to help predict when a potentially hazardous asteroid (or PHA) may hit us, not in this century, but the next. The rationale is that to stand any hope in deflecting a civilization-ending or extinction-level impact, we need as much time as possible to deal with the threatening space rock. (Asteroid deflection can be a time-consuming venture, after all.) Enter '(101955) 1999 RQ36' — an Apollo class, Earth-crossing, 500 meter-wide space rock. The prediction is that 1999 RQ36 has a 1-in-1,000 chance of hitting us in the future, and according to one of the study's scientists, María Eugenia Sansaturio, half of those odds fall squarely on the year 2182."
In that case, "Cool!"
It is a relief knowing when it will all end, I'll plan accordingly.
172 years people, geeze.
We won't even be alive by then.. why be concerned about something that has a 0.1%chance of happening?
You know this is going to be just like Y2K. Once the chance is realized to be 30% or higher, people will start working on the fix in 2181.
Begin the cloning process of Bruce Willis and a rag-tag team of loveable roughnecks.
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
Mankind posses technology to divert the asteroid, OR we have already died horribly by some great disaster.
And by then we personally may or may not have died depending on speed of life sciences research and our living habits.
©God
Nobody cared about global warming and burnt any kind of coal they found.
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
With advancements in medicine and the declination of our environment, I for one, am looking forward to ending my artificially enhanced 212 year old life in the blaze of a fiery meteoroid blast!
Namaste
SG-1 will soon realize that the asteroid is not native to the solar system and a Go'uld system lord towed it into the path of Earth. The team will be sent up along with a nuclear bomb that can't be disarmed by cutting the red wire since all four of them are yellow. Jack will make a note about complaining when they get back to Earth....
http://www.tv.com/stargate-sg-1/fail-safe/episode/63818/recap.html?tag=episode_recap;recap
Hopefully it wont be a case of 'How far away is the Asteroid?' '100 billion miles' BANG!
NASA can finally have a mission...
or more precisely 0.00054 = 1 in 1852 according to TFA.
Call this 1-in-1000 only if you can't do math.
why be concerned about something that has a 0.1%chance of happening?
Do I smell another funding scam?
We'll have a variable-focus length magnetic-field set of Fresnel rings (largest ring approx. earth diameter) that can focus the sun's most energetic output to a 1-mile spot at Pluto's orbit range - automated. The unfortunate unintended consequence will be that the same system will burn any would-be peaceful visitors just as badly...
Gads, I should write comic books.
I bet the odds of hitting the small black hole originated in one of the LHC sucessors will be far lower than 1 in 500. And if we avoid that disaster, a far worse one awaits us the 50 years previous of that event: remakes, sequels, prequels, reboots and so on of the Armaggeddon movie. Probably won't be any (sane) human alive after that.
Even if the odds were 100% that it would hit it would be 171.5 years before any bureaucrat does anything.
Ya got Asteroids?
Nah, but my dad does. Can't even sit on the toilet some days.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Statistically, we've probably discovered 1% of the potentially hazardous asteroids. Now we have a data point for an interesting occurrence: one of the ones we know about has a good chance of hitting us. What about the rest of them?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Like "UFO 2: Flying"?
...to put a high-def camera and an 802.11o wifi transmitter on the asteroid.
Their they're doing there hair.
2182 - 2010 = 172 years
Subtract 42 ( Life the universe and everything ) And you get 130 ( Hold this thought )
In 1951, Bobby Thomson hit the "Shot heard round the world" (i.e The Asteroid)
Against the Brooklyn Dodgers...(i.e Earth trying to "dodge")
Take 1951 and turn it into a repeating Decimal .1951951951........ ( this is wrong but who cares )
Then take the above 130 and divide by the repeating decimal and you get....
666 !
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
...will Perl 6 be ready?
Their they're doing there hair.
Actually there are many objects we are monitoring, please see http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/.
This object's impact probability is 7.1*10E-4. That's 0.00071, and not 1/1000.
The Torino Scale Color says white, which means impact is almost impossible.
Most of the times even if the probability is increased, it is quickly reduced after some investigation.
Currently the most dangerous object is 2007 VK184 (2048-2057) which gets green rating. This article is nothing more than sensationalist and stupid.
This is mostly a 'slake my ignorance post' but where do they pull a probability like a 1 in 1000 chance? Either the comet is going to hit us, or it isn't. So wheres the uncertainty coming from? Inaccurate measurement? or leaving margin for external unforeseeable (or at least currently unpredictable) forces acting on comet?
Either way, I don't see a reasonable way to derive a probability like that from. Perhaps they came up with a margin of error and treated every possible position within that margin of error with equal likelihood. Or maybe they've an empirically derived likeliness-that-significant-steller-object-will-enter-solar-system-and-infuence-comet's-path number laying around. Still, 1 in 1000 seems rather arbitrary (and slightly ridiculous) to me, like C3-PO saying the odds of navigating an asteroid field are approximately 3,720 to 1.
... 2183 was going to be the year of Linux on the Desktop...
I'll be dead by 2182 unless we reach singularity and achieve immortality through medicine, computing and science by then! So party it the fuck up! Smoke some weed, snort some cocaine, fuck a stripper! Life's a short joke and you're it so enjoy it while you can fuckers! Fuck the asteroids!
I do hope you all are aware that "Project: Deep Impact" was probably a secret mission to stop a potential asteroid collision. So don't get too excited about any potential asteroid collisions. We already have the capability to thwart such a menace, and have already done so. All further speculation is wasted... er, finger movements.
As long as it isn't a million to one shot...
Interesting... But what are the odds that this calculation is right?
A rock like this heading to our planet and we've got plenty of time to not just deflect the thing, but to move it into Earth orbit where it can be mined, turned into an outpost, and be used as a tether for a space elevator.
You have 1 in 5,000 chance of a car accident today, while 172 years from now a 1 in 1,000 chance of world wipe out. That is a significantly high chance of extinction! And where I live is a 1 in 101 chance of being in a car accident :(
Hopefully with development of better models, telescopes, etc, etc we can track asteroids extremely far out and get a good feel for if there will be impacts. As stated, it is the kind of thing that could take a long time. So, if you know about one 200 years in advance, no problem. You wouldn't do anything about it now, as such an object would be very far away. But it lets you start planning, and knowing when those plans need to be put in to action. When it is 30-50 years out, maybe that's when building starts on whatever is needed to deflect it.
Much better to have the information a century early than a few years too late.
We cannot predict the course of asteroids over 200 years to within an Earth diameter. I have worked on this area, and the masses and positions of bodies (particularly all of the other asteroids) are simply not well enough known. So, it will come near the Earth, but we won't know if it is a true threat for at least a century.
I know this sounds morbid , but i'd kinda like to be alive when something like this happens...
N
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
it'll fall on Mecca
at the Olympus Mons restaurant. The evening program includes Marsian comedy, drinks, and strippers, and we offer the best view to watch Earth when the asteroid hits!
I can't find it in me to care about 2182 as much as I do about 2036. I guess I'm kind of selfish.
(Besides, those future people will all be screwed by global warming anyway; what's an asteroid or two?)
So - can we call it Nivens Hammer ??
How long until the history channel devotes an entire hour to a bunch of jackasses telling us Nostradamus predicted this?
the dreaded PHB of doom?
Whatever happens I'm going to check out of here long before the PHA, and hopefully long before the PHB from hell turns up. (Got a few PHB's around but they're of the manageable kind - just listen, nod, say yes and then go back to doing what ever you had in mind before they decided to part some sage-like wisdom (only problme is the sage in this case is a small somewhat bedraggled herb rather than a wiseman))
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
This is all moot because the world will end in 2012 anyway
it's on the internet, so it must be true.
but if it happens that nothing happens in 2012, i'm sure someone will say there was a slight error in the calculations and say the asteroid will cause the end of the world. after all, what's a couple hundred years on a time scale of thousands of years?
"For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Long Words Bother Me"
Image 13 boxes each containing 13 revolvers.
One revolver has one bullet in it.
Now imagine being offered $100,000 to pick a box, and then pick a revolver and then shoot yourself with it.
That 1000:1 odds.
-paul
Well, it's a good thing the world ends in a couple of years; no need to worry about this threat.
... calling it a 1 in 1000 chance.
It either hits, or it does not, and the actual outcome is 100% certain right now. ONLY we can not calculate it right now exactly. So I assume they are pretty sure the asteroid will miss, but give it a 1 in 1000 chance that they are wrong in that conclusion.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I read that with an "r" instead of the "c" in "space", and the "c" instead of ... well, suffice it to say, that summary suddenly took a strange turn!
Yes Cryo might even work, in a few years it might even be possible to bring back those that are now frozen... but why should we bring them back?
...statistical nomenclature is "half those odds"? Use terms a non-statistician might understand.
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
I thought one of Chuck Norris' jobs was to kick asteroids so what's the big deal?
2182 is the street address of the house I grew up in. It's fate! It's karma! It MUST mean something, right? The chances of that happening by accident are astronomical!*
Although, considering how many people are on SlashDot, and given the fact that dates and a lot of other important numbers to people, including street numbers are typically four digits, I guess it's probably closer to a dead certainty that someone on Slashdot would have some sort of connection to the number.
But still!
*(pun intended)
- ------- There are ten kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who... Huh?
keep them frozen till 2999 dec 31
I'd love to make it to my 202nd birthday.
All we need is to send Bugs Bunny up there to steal this RQ36 thing and that martian will run around saying things like "what happened to the kaboom?! There was supposed to be an earth shattering kaboom?!" and "Someone has stolen my 1999 RQ36 Explosive Space Modulator!"
And we'll all have a good laugh.
or something...
also the revolver has less space than a Nomad
Global warming is a deceptively mellow term for what will potentially happen. At a certain turning point the entire atmosphere will change to make life on this planet entirely impossible. No hiding, no adaptation, no recourse: no one spared, not child, animal or plant. If we don't have interstellar travel and civilization methods by then, our best "hope" is a similar species evolving somewhere else.
Well, eventually. For a sufficiently large value of "eventually".
That's the Venus scenario. Since the sun is gradually getting brighter (about 10% every billion years), eventually the oceans will boil, and at that point, it's pretty much over unless life exhibits a lot more adaptation than we've currently seen.
I've seen calculations suggesting that this might happen as early as 500,000,000 years from now. But most peope think it will take longer.
Of course, if by "child, animal, or plant" you don't count anaerobic life, we can make the planet uninhabitable faster just by converting the oxygen in the atmosphere entirely (or almost entirely) into CO2. (Yes, plants do need oxygen-- they may "breathe" CO2, but they also breathe oxygen). Looking at the slope of the atmospheric CO2 increase, http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ , and fitting this to an exponential, I get roughly a thousand years for that to occur. Give or take. (Which is short compared to half a billion years.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
the governments of the world would wait until 2181 to even think about doing anything even if the probability was 100% guaranteed. So, planning this far out will do nothing, as our governments always wait till the last second.
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
One step at a time shall we....
First lets get past end of the world in 2012, then worry about 2182.
LoOkS lIkE iT's TiMe To StArT fIrInG uP tHe ReD tEaM! iF tHaT mEtEoR hItS iT wOuLd TaKe AnOtHeR mIrAcLe.
If the technology no longer requires sattelites at that point in time, then spin the asteroid around the earth opposite of its rotation and clean up the shell of space-debris.
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You know, to start plinking away, getting a bit of target practice in.
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Now is the time to get the technology of blowing them up and or steering them into the sun or deep space forever.
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And there are 20,000 + of them to clean up.
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This bullshit of going up Uranus to keep us in the space race etc., well that is partly crap - we collectively need to start actively WORKING in space, for genuinely practical reasons.
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This not to say that telescopes and robots and explorer satellites are not useful, they are., but if the crap that is flying around up there, is not taken out and cleans us all up a a few hundred or a few thousand years - we must start doing it today - here and now, while we are in a position to do it.
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Voting up, Voting down - If I really gave a fuck about your approval or not, I'd come and ask you.
Contract with cryogenic facility... bring me back when X... that would definitely drive their sales up if they bring out at least a couple people
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that