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."

Comments

Re:I'll probably be dead by then, right?

[Allnighte]

Not only you. The whole human species would be extinct by then. We have global warming, pollution, fuel shortage, wars, corruption. These are enough to finish us by 2100. What happens in 2182 is irrelevant.

Yeah hi, can I also get the pollution with no cheese and add bacon? And can you make the drink with the wars just a bottle of water instead of a Coke?
Also can you throw in some of those Chinese takeovers of Western society and the LHC creating a blackhole which will eat all of France?
Thanks.

Re:Good news

[bunratty]

NASA scientists have probably just made up this asteroid impact so they can get rich by getting grants to study the chance of impact and what to do about it. Politicians will love it because it gives them an excuse to raise taxes to deal with the possible impact. Of course, asteroids have been impacting the Earth for millions of years, so it can't possibly be anything to worry about. They should prove that we can avoid the impact before they spend any money on attempting to avoid it. We don't even know if the impact will happen, because multiple orbital bodies are a chaotic system, so we can't possibly predict where they'll be in 172 years.