Earth Avoids Collisions With Pair of Asteroids

Hugh Pickens writes "According to NASA, a pair of asteroids — one just over three miles wide — passed Earth Tuesday and early Wednesday, avoiding a potentially cataclysmic impact with our home planet. 2012 XE5, estimated at 50-165 feet across, was discovered just days earlier, missing our planet by only 139,500 miles, or slightly more than half the distance to the moon. 4179 Toutatis, just over three miles wide, put on an amazing show for astronomers early Wednesday, missing Earth by 18 lunar lengths, while allowing scientists to observe the massive asteroid in detail. Asteroid Toutatis is well known to astronomers. It passes by Earth's orbit every four years and astronomers say its unique orbit means it is unlikely to impact Earth for at least 600 years. It is one of the largest known potentially hazardous asteroids, and its orbit is inclined less than half-a-degree from Earth's. 'We already know that Toutatis will not hit Earth for hundreds of years,' says Lance Benner of NASA's Near Earth Object Program. 'These new observations will allow us to predict the asteroid's trajectory even farther into the future.' Toutatis would inflict devastating damage if it slammed into Earth, perhaps extinguishing human civilization. The asteroid thought to have killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was about 6 miles wide, researchers say. The fact that 2012 XE5 was discovered only a few days before the encounter prompted Minnesota Public Radio to poll its listeners with the following question: If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an hour, would you want to know?"

Comments

What did we do, the Lambada?

[mellon]

I know writing headlines is hard, but this one seems to imply that earth took evasive action. The less exciting "earth does not collide with pair of asteroids" would be a touch less misleading.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[mug funky]

barrel roll.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a common use of the word avoid. Why would you even bring it up? Nothing implies the Earth did anything.

On the other hand, I do object to TFS mixing "miles" and "lunar lengths" instead of a single unit when describing the closest distance of the asteroids.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Natales]

Whatever flashy headline was used to attract readers to the fact that there are potentially *a lot* of undetected large objects that could wipe us out was worth it. I mean, this is serious shit, and we are NOT taking it seriously enough. Believing we have it covered or it won't happen for 600 years is not good enough. Even Stephen Hawkins has brought this up before. We are seating ducks unless we "diversify our investments", meaning going out there and colonize other planets. It took millions of years and many extinction cycles to get us where we are as an intelligent species, and now we have to think big to survive. Honestly, I'd expect this crowd in Slashdot to really understand the implications. This issue needs to be at least high-er in the priority list of what we spend money in.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[RabidTimmy]

While the article does initially use miles on the nearer asteroid, it does immediately translate it into lunar lengths.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[ShanghaiBill]

we are NOT taking it seriously enough.

Actually, we are. A 50-165 foot asteroid can sneak up on us, but that isn't going to do much. It has less energy than the 9.0 Fukushima Earthquake, which killed ~10,000 people. If you count up all the people that die everywhere on Earth, that is about two hours worth of deaths. It just isn't worth worrying about anything that small. For big ELE asteroids, we have those tracked well enough that we would likely have years of warning, more than enough time to interdict.

We are seating ducks unless we "diversify our investments", meaning going out there and colonize other planets.

Once we get off this rock, the dumbest thing we could do is establish colonies in another planet's gravity well. It would be much smarter to build the colonies on ... near earth asteroids. We could even use some nukes to brake one of them enough to bring it into Earth orbit. Then we could disassemble it and use it as raw material to construct O'Neill Cylinders. An asteroid three miles in diameter could provide about 50 billion tons of iron that could be forged into structural steel using focused sunlight.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Genda]

We'd be better off setting up a train of a couple dozen colonized asteroids shifting between Earth and Mars orbits using them and a continuous conveyor belt for people, materials and critical resources to and from a Mars Colony. Terraforming Mars then building colonies on icy moons with liquid oceans would scatter us around sufficiently that only a really nasty event might threaten us.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a common use of the word avoid. Why would you even bring it up? Nothing implies the Earth did anything.

Because the common use of the word avoid implies it WAS going to collide, but then something changed and it did not. While mixing units is MUCH more commonly done, and not technically wrong just a pain to do the conversions.

But the real answer to the parent is that a bunch of Mayan Doomsday wingnuts were dead convinced that it was going to wipe out the planet and the Mystical Magical Mayan Men had predicted it with their calendar. So in that sense yes, we "avoided" a collision (by doing nothing) but back in Reality it's just business as usual.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are seating ducks unless we "diversify our investments",

Hey, even waterfowl need to be directed to their proper place of rest, so I have no problems in seating them appropriately.

It took millions of years and many extinction cycles to get us where we are as an intelligent species, and now we have to think big to survive.

Yes, but unlike previous species who wandered the Earth during those events, we can anticipate and plan for such events. It's highly unlikely that even a "dinosaur" scale event would actually wipe all of Humanity from the planet, although most people (especially City Folk) would be fucked for sure.

This issue needs to be at least high-er in the priority list of what we spend money in.

You're not going to get people to start colonizing based on vague fears of a global extinction event. If you can convince them it's an actual danger at all, they are going to want all those resources pumped into finding ways to detect and divert an asteroid, comet, etc. or find a way to get everybody off the planet and onto some temporary "Ark" type ships prior to a collision. The idea that they are all going to die horribly but humanity will survive elsewhere simply won't satisfy them as a solution, end of story.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the cut of your jib

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Rogerborg]

Shoulder roll.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[waynemcdougall]

Earth's next trick is to move 3 million miles farther out from sun to stop that pesky overheating problem

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever flashy headline was used to attract readers to the fact that there are potentially *a lot* of undetected large objects that could wipe us out was worth it. I mean, this is serious shit, and we are NOT taking it seriously enough.

The earth lasted this long without being destroyed so yes we can afford to not take large astroid strikes seriously.

Believing we have it covered or it won't happen for 600 years is not good enough.

It is for me. I'm no buddhists monk yet a healthy dose of impermanence certainly takes the edge off.

Even Stephen Hawkins has brought this up before. We are seating ducks unless we "diversify our investments", meaning going out there and colonize other planets.

Stephen Hawking knows what about this topic exactly? Does he give biology lectures too?

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you are worried about meteors when there could be nearby Earth destroying supernovas or hidden black holes flying through the galaxy? I mean, what are we doing about that?

The answer is a risk-benefit analysis. The probability of a meteor destroying humanity in the next 10,000 years is so infinitesimal that it is a waste of money to research for that purpose. The only reason that space scientists aren't complaining is that they can use the idiotic premise of detecting potentially Earth destroying asteroids to do what they want--study asteroids. And meteors make dramatic movies which convince idiots that they are some sort of threat. They aren't. Stop worrying over stupid shit. Oddly enough, something that is currently causing enormous damage to the planet is ignored because it isn't dramatic enough: climate change.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[hpoul]

well, but your wording is really boring and useless.. it also didn't collide yesterday .. or the day before.. so it's not really the best title for news, since news shouldn't be about things which did NOT happen (there are quite a few things which did NOT happen), but about things that did happen.. so: "asteroids passed close to earth" (or did earth pass by asteroids?) = did happen.. "earth does not collide" = stuff that did not happen..

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Forty Two Tenfold]

The probability of a meteor destroying humanity in the next 10,000 years is so infinitesimal that it is a waste of money to research for that purpose.

Ever heard about lottery? We could win!

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sausage roll.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

A foetus won't form properly in zero gravity, so there goes that idea.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[hawkinspeter]

Sausage roll

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[WaffleMonster]

Ever heard about lottery? We could win!

This fact still does not justify wasting your money on a lottery ticket.

What if we spent all of our efforts building an astroid shield and a GRB goes off nearby and cooks the planet? If we happen to have won that lottery you would look pretty stupid worrying about asteroids when you should have been building a gamma shield.

Resources are finite. We must all choose our battles carefully based on evidence rather than arbitrary fears or hopes.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Coisiche]

Fair point, but O'Neill cylinders have artificial gravity via centrifugal force on their inner surfaces. Research point for someone there to see how much that changes things, but even setting up a workable environment for, say mice, to investigate the effects will probably cost quite a bit.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[tehcyder]

I know writing headlines is hard, but this one seems to imply that earth took evasive action. The less exciting "earth does not collide with pair of asteroids" would be a touch less misleading.

Only if you're an absolutely literal type with no glimmer of subtlety or imagination in your response to the external world.

So, yes, I can see it would be a problem for a lot of slashdotters.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[tehcyder]

It's a common use of the word avoid. Why would you even bring it up? Nothing implies the Earth did anything.

Because the common use of the word avoid implies it WAS going to collide, but then something changed and it did not. While mixing units is MUCH more commonly done, and not technically wrong just a pain to do the conversions.

Not really. If you say "the child ran out into the road without looking and narrowly avoided being run down by an eighteen wheel truck" it doesn't imply that the child or the truck did anything to avoid the collision, it was just lucky their paths didn't cross, as here with Earth and the asteroids.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

This fact still does not justify wasting your money on a lottery ticket.

Actually the fact that it has already happened and can happen again at any time does justify investing resources in our safety from such a threat. We're talking about survival of the species here, not just an individual.
The mere fact that a devastating asteroid passed near us at less than the distance to the moon is another justification.

What if we spent all of our efforts building an astroid shield and a GRB goes off nearby and cooks the planet? If we happen to have won that lottery you would look pretty stupid worrying about asteroids when you should have been building a gamma shield.

We would not look stupid for worrying about asteroids, we would look stupid for not worrying enough about GRB.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[tehcyder]

We are seating ducks

Not quite as good as "escape goat" but still amusing.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[terjeber]

the dumbest thing we could do is establish colonies in another planet's gravity well. It would be much smarter to build the colonies on ... near earth asteroids

Slight disagreement, but mostly in agreement. It would however be even dumber to establish colonies outside of a planetary magnetic field, given the rather cheap protection from radiation these provide. At least until we can create habitats that are large enough to them selves protect us from radiation, which is a ways away yet :-)

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[terjeber]

Ah, sorry, the lottery is a serious long-shot compared to death by asteroid. The reason is, given the right asteroid, when someone wins, everybody wins. it's a little bit as if, as the mega jackpot gets bigger and bigger, the number of people who will win the entire thing when the numbers go right increases each time. So, what is the chance? About 1:700K. Doesn't sound like a lot.

You are more likely to die in a fireworks accident, but you are less likely to die by terrorist attack than you are to die by asteroid strike. So, why don't we agree that we'll spend accordingly. We'll spend as much preventing asteroid attacks as we currently spend preventing terrorist attacks. That sounds reasonable to me.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[terjeber]

Well, since the chance of getting killed by an asteroid is higher than getting killed by a terrorist, why not spend the same amount of money on preventing each? Also, the technology gains from investing in the prevention of asteroid attacks could also further the technologies needed to mitigate (not prevent) a GRB attack (seeding with arks for example).

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[tehcyder]

Ever heard about lottery? We could win!

This fact still does not justify wasting your money on a lottery ticket.

It depends how much the lottery ticket costs. A couple of euros a week is no more silly than buying a couple of chocolate bars.

What is definitely not a good idea is spending 90% of your annual salary on lottery tickets, and impoverishing yourself on the remote chance of striking lucky.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Joce640k]

Whatever flashy headline was used to attract readers to the fact that there are potentially *a lot* of undetected large objects that could wipe us out was worth it. I mean, this is serious shit, and we are NOT taking it seriously enough

If a big rock was headed this way, what exactly could we do about it? More advance warning just means more days of fighting/looting/burning.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, sorry, the lottery is a serious long-shot compared to death by asteroid. The reason is, given the right asteroid, when someone wins, everybody wins.

You suck at probability. You really need to think about your assumptions before continuing with this line of reasoning.

but you are less likely to die by terrorist attack than you are to die by asteroid strike. So, why don't we agree that we'll spend accordingly.

Doing two stupid things doesn't make you smarter. The fact that enormous amounts of money is wasted on terrorism helps to explain why we shouldn't jump to kneejerk reactions on items with negligible risk. That same logic applies to meteor protection.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

The obvious question, is it even possible to put asteroids into a stable trajectory that orbits Mars and the Earth AND that does not require inordinate amounts of energy to keep them in that trajectory AND the trajectory is sufficiently short that people would tolerate travelling in such a fashion (e.g. it's no good if it takes 10 years and slingshots too close to the sun and cooks everyone or around another planet and kills everyone from the radiation).

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[DerekLyons]

Whatever flashy headline was used to attract readers to the fact that there are potentially *a lot* of undetected large objects that could wipe us out was worth it.

Well, no. We've been looking pretty closely at the skies for a while now, and the odds that there is an undetected object large enough to threaten extinction are now pretty low. It's the one's in the "oh, crap, we hope this doesn't hit a populated area" that are a problem, but they're pretty rare objects and even rarer events. Such flashy headlines mostly serve to excite the excitable and panic those easily panicked and those who really don't understand the situation at all. The popular press has significantly overstated the threat.
 

I mean, this is serious shit, and we are NOT taking it seriously enough. We are seating ducks unless we "diversify our investments", meaning going out there and colonize other planets.

We, as a species, are taking in about as seriously as we can. We're looking for and cataloging the objects and predicting their tracks, and that's about the best we can do for the near future.
 
Absent a Manhattan or Apollo level project, we simply can't usefully colonize other planets. With such "waste anything but time"/"near blank check" level projects, we're a century or more away from being able to do so - there's simply too many "unknown unknowns" in creating a colony or system of colonies that can survive if the Earth is wiped out. The odds are far too low to justify to cost.
 

Honestly, I'd expect this crowd in Slashdot to really understand the implications.

Understanding the implications is one thing - objectively understanding the overall issues is another.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ow, call a doctor, someone cut my jib.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[FatLittleMonkey]

It's called a Mars Cycler. More generally a "free return trajectory".

AND the trajectory is sufficiently short that people would tolerate travelling in such a fashion

You can tunnel out a pair of rings inside the asteroid, each a couple of hundred metres across, create a ring of habitats and counter-spin them for gravity. A bit of maglev to stabilise the spins. Gravity from the habs, radiation and thermal shielding from the asteroid. Pick the right asteroid and you've also got fuel, air and water. Add sunlight and you've got fresh food. People could live comfortably for years, gradually expanding through the asteroid; as Mars crews visit, refuel, depart, visit, refuel, depart...

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[MachineShedFred]

I was thinking the same thing. Did someone jam the breaks, or swerve out of the way?

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

brakes, not breaks

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Jmc23]

Look it up, you're wrong. Avoid implies volition. 'Narrowly avoided' is an idiom.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

We, meaning the United States, could do nothing but look at it and say "too bad", You see we gave up the "high Ground" principle. Science for the profit of mankind went out the window years ago. Now we have "privatized" science, "copyrighted" science, and for the "profit" of a few. We had a military that could have helped to lead the way, but they went private also. Just as "chesty" said, gotta guard the bananas.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another sidepoint, do you buy health insurance because the govt tells you to, or because the law is going to say you have to. being a "young" man, implies healthy, but you may need it because???
Next point, tin hat style, have you talked to the regalians yet, did they see the asteroid, did they change the angular momentium when they landede, either here or there.
So just because it will take an extra dollar from your pet project, the ultimate distruction of earth and mankind, you cannot see the advances of science, the advances of the "dreamstate" of man, and are only going to let the aborigines walk the sky. How short sighted your ideas are.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[gmuslera]

Maybe not evasive action by itself, but something that some hero between us did. Bruce Willis already saved us in Armageddon, and now, seem that Kim Jong did it too. Too bad it was misunderstood what happened with that earth defense satellite after making those asteroids to move away.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are seating ducks

Not quite as good as "escape goat" but still amusing.

Listen man, if it weren't for that goat I never would have gotten out alive!

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Jason Levine]

Philadelphia Roll

(And now I'm hungry for sushi.)

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[dkleinsc]

It depends not just on how much the lottery ticket costs, but also the odds of winning and the payoff.

For instance, in the recent big Powerball jackpot on this side of the pond, a $2 ticket had a 1 in 165 million odds of winning a jackpot worth $550 million. That means that, on average, your $2 ticket is worth 550/165=$3.33. Which means it's not really a losing proposition to have one.

Now, I wouldn't give up something essential to get one or even a bunch of them, but taking a shot at it is not necessarily a bad idea.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to knock anyone's dreams, but...

The general public and the governments responsible for funding will never allow this to happen. Our space budgets are currently about the same as our lottery. Is there a way to build an entire habitable ecosystem for a future population on say...a few hundred million? "We really can't afford budget cuts in other areas."

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[VoidCrow]

Some seems to have created a platform game called 'Escape Goat', but sadly, there's no equivalent for 'Seating Duck'. It cries out to be given life as a companion to Toilet Duck, though, maybe as a way of gamma-irradiating toilet seats when you live in a house full of aim-challenged hairless proto-simians.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Golddess]

While I agree with you from the standpoint that "Earth Avoids Collision" can make sense even if Earth and the colliding object did nothing special to try and avoid the collision, being 18x the distance from Earth that the moon is doesn't really register to me as an "OMG WE WERE ALMOST HIT" event.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could explain that tumbling North Korea satellite, I suppose.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

The earth lasted this long without being destroyed so yes we can afford to not take large astroid strikes seriously.

That's great for the Earth, but I'm sure the dinosaurs would have loved to have not been wiped out.

It is for me. I'm no buddhists monk yet a healthy dose of impermanence certainly takes the edge off.

"I've got mine, fuck future generations", eh?

Stephen Hawking knows what about this topic exactly?

Ok, yeah, I'm not really sure what GP was getting at there. Usually the "even Person X knows you don't do Y" argument is meant to imply that it's so obvious an idea, that even an idiot gets it.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[jbengt]

being 18x the distance from Earth that the moon is doesn't really register to me as an "OMG WE WERE ALMOST HIT" event.

Being 1/2 the distance to the moon does, though, especially as it (the smaller asteroid) wasn't even discovered until a day or so beforehand. TFA was about two asteroids in close proximity to the Earth at nearly the same time.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[LoRdTAW]

I don't think comparing earthquakes to asteroid impacts is a good metric. That being said I am sure if this thing were to impact a heavily crowded city such as Shanghai, London or New York, the effects would be much more devastating than the 10,000 you quoted. I am sure the energy from an asteroid of that size could very well level an entire city and kill millions. The devastation will surely impact the entire nation as well, both emotionally and financially.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

. It has less energy than the 9.0 Fukushima Earthquake, which killed ~10,000 people.

I estimate it would be closer to a 7.5 magnitude earthquake (on the old energy based scale). But it would still be 200 times stronger than Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima which killed at least 60,000 people from the direct blast. So maybe just comparing it to similar energy earthquakes is not a good comparison, and it would depend a lot on where it actually hits.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Absent a Manhattan or Apollo level project, we simply can't usefully colonize other planets. With such "waste anything but time"/"near blank check" level projects, we're a century or more away from being able to do so - there's simply too many "unknown unknowns" in creating a colony or system of colonies that can survive if the Earth is wiped out. The odds are far too low to justify to cost.

http://mars-one.com

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[mcgrew]

Well, since the chance of getting killed by an asteroid is higher than getting killed by a terrorist

Incorrect. Can you point to a single instance of anyone ever being killed by an asteroid? That's not to say that fear of terrorism in the US are justified; your chances of being killed by lightning are greater than your chances of being killed by a terrorist.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Golddess]

Yes, but could that one have caused a cataclysmic impact? It seemed too small, but then I'm hardly qualified to judge such things.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Actually, contrary to what everyone says, the probability of the Earth getting hit by an asteroid (and/or vice-versa) is 1. The bet is: how soon against how much we can salvage.

I propose that puny humans start with a repository of post-apocalyptic know-how (i.e. last contingency) and build from there backwards. OR BE DESTROYED! Good night.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[terjeber]

Incorrect

No, it isn't really. It is in fact quite correct. The chance of getting hit by an asteroid is infinitesimally small. Chances of getting killed by one is a lot higher. According to Alan Harris, any persons lifetime odds of being killed by an asteroid is about 1:700 000. Not high, but higher than getting killed by a terrorist.

History doesn't really matter. What is relevant is future. Remember, if a big one hits, that is about 6 billion people dead. So, that drives the odds up quite significantly.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/10/13/death-by-meteorite/#.UMotd2_BGSo

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[cusco]

Depends on where it hits. In the Atlantic Ocean a dozen kilometers off the New York waterfront? Yeah, a cataclysm, at least for New Yorkers. The middle of the Sahara? Not so much. India/Pakistan border region? One or both sides would assume it was a nuclear attack, and since Pakistan's nukes are under local military control rather than the central government a cataclysm is pretty much assured. Direct hit on Las Vegas? Nothing of value lost.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[mcgrew]

I was thinking the same thing. Did someone jam the breaks

Breaks? You mean jam the fissures in the asteroid? What are you babbling about??

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[cusco]

Five meters of lunar regolith has been estimated to provide colonists on the moon with an environment with lower background radiation levels than they experience on Earth. For an asteroidal colony I'd want at least 50 meters to ensure structural stability, but in any case radiation shouldn't be a problem. O'Neil habitats are much further away.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't you talk to a sailmaker about that instead?

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll?? Wtf? I just modded this informative and it gets a score of 2 Troll. Slashdot's moderators can so be capricious and petty.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[cusco]

For you, maybe. For my part I'll take any reason to colonize space, or no reason at all beyond "it's there, let's go!"

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who don't feel like looking it up:

DICTIONARY
avoid |void| verb
1 keep away from or stop oneself from doing (something):
2 Law repudiate, nullify, or render void (a decree or contract).
avoidance |voidns | noun ,
avoider noun

THESAURUS
avoid
verb
1 I avoid situations that stress me out: keep away from, stay away from, steer clear of, give a wide berth to, fight shy of. ANTONYMS confront.
2 he is trying to avoid responsibility: evade, dodge, sidestep, escape, run away from; informal duck, wriggle out of, get out of, cop out of. ANTONYMS face up to.
3 he jerked back to avoid a wild pitch: dodge, duck, get out of the way of.
4 you've been avoiding me all evening: shun, stay away from, evade, keep one's distance from, elude, hide from; ignore, give the cold shoulder. ANTONYMS seek out.
5 he should avoid drinking alcohol: refrain from, abstain from, desist from, eschew. ANTONYMS indulge in.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[david_thornley]

At a rough estimation, the chance that a rock coming at least that close will hit the planet about one in a thousand times. I'm not sure I like those odds.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[cusco]

And this is a bad thing?

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, if a big one hits, that is about 6 billion people dead. So, that drives the odds up quite significantly.

No it doesn't! Dammit! As I said before, you really, really suck at probability. For fucks sake, please stop embarrassing yourself.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[terjeber]

Cool, didn't know 5m would be enough. From what I had read eons ago, it seemed more was needed. 5m is cool though.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

you still need to get the delta-v to get yourself on the same trajectory/trip as the asteroid, which is where we have a lot of the energy/cost problem, otherwise...

(1) you probably kill your colonists on the asteroid landing and/or destroy a lot of the equipment
(2) over time, knock the asteroid out of it's convenient orbit
(3) Completely fail to be able to usefully deposit the payload on Mars at the end of the journey (or back on Earth for the return)

Then again... You might as well just build a ship and put it in the looping orbit, it'll be cheaper to stabilize if/when the orbit changes to something less desirable, since it will lack the dead weight.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's coming around for another pass on the 21st! I hope we saved enough fuel to do that again!

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[mcgrew]

"As I said before"? Whoever you are, log in or get an account.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[MachineShedFred]

One typo, two pedantic responses.

Glad to see that some things on Slashdot never change. Unfortunately, it's the things that we wish would change that don't, and the things that we wish didn't change that do.

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stephen Hawkins

Who?

Re:What did we do, the Lambada?

[Anonymous Coward]

California roll! :D

would I want to know?

[Black Parrot]

Of course! Time for a quick trip to the whorehouse, then a quicker trip to church to get saved.

Re:would I want to know?

[gagol]

Time to go to sleep for me... I read "trip to the warehouse", it was very confusing for a moment... I would do something very similar.

Re:would I want to know?

[gagol]

...Then one of your friend would show up, buy booze, stash peanuts and get his intergallactic hitchhiking device!

Re:would I want to know?

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm sure many churches would be open and accepting the flock, I'm not sure the prostitutes would bother staying "open" for business unless they REALLY liked their job.

Re:would I want to know?

[EdIII]

I'm not into the whole church thing. Too irrational and I think sci-fi is better story telling.

An hour is not enough to get the whorehouse from where I am, but plenty of time to get on the net, pants around my ankles, and hell to rationing the lube....

Re:would I want to know?

[drkim]

Of course! Time for a quick trip to the whorehouse, then a quicker trip to church to get saved.

After what that priest did to me, I'm gonna have to pray with the hooker...

Re:would I want to know?

[Genda]

For the love of Pete! Where's your towel? You can't go anywhere without a bloody towel.

Re:would I want to know?

[Genda]

Actually knowing could be very useful, depending on the size of the object and the impact site. You might be able to get to high ground to avoid a tsunami. You might be able to hang out in a cavern to avoid debris fall. You could even renting a plane or catching a quick flight if any were still available. This all presumes an impact significantly smaller than an ELE.

Re:would I want to know?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course! Time for a quick trip to the whorehouse, then a quicker trip to church to get saved

Like the gals at your local whorehouse couldn't find any thing/one better to do with their last hour than fornicate with your sorry ass.

With 52 1/2 minutes remaining you discover your friendly local whorehouse was empty. By now everyone knows and you are stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for at least another 30 minutes making way to your standing room only church.

This leaves 22 1/2 minutes remaining to ponder how stupid you think god really is. I mean dude...like his holyness would not know about your plans or what you just posted to slashdot...

Perhaps you figure he would be so busy tending to floods of new admissions into his kingdom that you could just slide by unnoticed?

Re:would I want to know?

[adolf]

Actually knowing could be very useful, depending on the size of the object and the impact site. You might be able to get to high ground to avoid a tsunami. You might be able to hang out in a cavern to avoid debris fall. You could even renting a plane or catching a quick flight if any were still available. This all presumes an impact significantly smaller than an ELE.

Or, you know: Just use the opportunity to finally call up Dude to buy some smack, bang it with whatever filthy apparatus is available, and then go drive downtown and pay however-much cash the ATM will dish out to facefuck a crackwhore as the fireballs rain down.

In an end-of-your-world scenario, nothing is sacred.

Re:would I want to know?

[ArsenneLupin]

I'm not sure the prostitutes would bother staying "open" for business

So, go to the sauna instead. You do have your towel with you, do you?

Re:would I want to know?

[Jmc23]

If that's in any way appealing then you don't have to worry about the end of the world because your life is already over.

Re:would I want to know?

[adolf]

I suppose you'd think I'd be better to get off by going to church, eh?

Re:would I want to know?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, you know: Just use the opportunity to finally call up Dude to buy some smack, bang it with whatever filthy apparatus is available, and then go drive downtown and pay however-much cash the ATM will dish out to facefuck a crackwhore as the fireballs rain down.

Not my vice of choice, but from what I understand your plan is off. You want blow, not smack, if you plan to go find sex. People who do smack lose all interest in sex. I could be wrong, it's not good to trust TV too much. I have a hard time believe anything could make me not want to have sex. Still, I'm sure the meme is "hookers and blow" for a reason.

Smack would be nice for quietly watching the fireworks from your porch and no feeling any pain when the end comes. If you don't fall asleep first. Sounds like a peaceful way to die.

Re:would I want to know?

[SolitaryMan]

Dude, this is the most depressing thing I've heard in long long time...

Re:would I want to know?

[Jmc23]

Gosh no, they tend to steal free will... not so much in Canada though.

Re:would I want to know?

[cusco]

Wouldn't you want to wash the blood out first? Or at least swap it for a clean one. Even the Vogons will look suspiciously at someone carrying a towel soaked in blood. B-)

Re:would I want to know?

[Anonymous Coward]

The dinosaur killer missed those birds buried underground by only few tens of centimetres. Forward knowledge even for a ten kilometre asteroid would be appreciated so that at least some of us may not have to roast in temperatures of a pizza oven.

Precursor to planet 13?

[ayahner]

Uh. I mean 12

If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an hour

[gagol]

I would definitely want to know. I would leave work, buy booze and party like there is no tomorrow.

Evasive pattern alpha

[Anonymous Coward]

Evasive pattern alpha. Works every time.

Thank god...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank god there is no one out there messing with that thing. Just imagine a bunch of mischievous deities/aliens going "Wouldn't it be interesting to see what happens with those 7 billion humans if we just moved the trajectory if this rock just a wee bit in this direction? - No wait let's let them develop another four years and do it then, haha..." (much the same way we point magnifying lenses at ants)

Re:Thank god...

[mrbester]

Prior art: Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

Re:Thank god...

[Anonymous Coward]

Prior prior art: Lucifer's Hammer (1977), same authors. And more accurrate re: asteroid collisions. LH describes a comet strike instead of an asteroid, while in FF, "The Foot" is a deliberate act by the aliens to get our attention and make sure we know that "they" mean it.

Re:Thank god...

[DrVxD]

Prior prior art: Starship Troopers - R A Heinlein.

Arbitrary Rule of Thumb

[xav_jones]

If it's further out than the moon, I tend not to be bothered. Less than that and I count it a near miss and get a little adrenaline kick as if I have just avoided a car accident. So, when are we getting some sort of asteroid defence system up there?

Re:Arbitrary Rule of Thumb

[Anonymous Coward]

So, when are we getting some sort of asteroid defence system up there?

Soon as you can convince the Republicans there's oil on asteroids, of course.

Re:Arbitrary Rule of Thumb

[Narnie]

I'm worried that if you tell Republicans there's oil in asteroids, they'd try to have them delivered to Texas.

Re:Arbitrary Rule of Thumb

[interval1066]

Soon as you can convince the Republicans there's oil on asteroids, of course.And as long as democrats can milk a few million out of it by "saving the asteroid", you betcha.

Re:Arbitrary Rule of Thumb

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry.. we'll just deliver them at 18 km/s

It is our kill switch

[louzer]

Just in case human beings go psycho, somebody in the intergalactic union will press a red button to slightly nudge the asteroid.

Re:It is our kill switch

[korpique]

the continued existence of a universe is based on its ability to produce complex structures without intelligence that would find out how to collapse it and use that as a weapon. The best protection against intelligence getting too far is a steady rate of catastrophic events. As universes get older, their contents get more evenly distributed and catastrophic events get less frequent, opening the odds up for their eventual demise.

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[Anonymous Coward]

And that is diffrent than any other friday, how?

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[jamesh]

Did you write that sig especially for TFA?

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[gagol]

No, pun not intended...

Obligatory Mayan apocalypse

[blagfast]

And all the while everyone here thought the good Mayan folks were full of BS!

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[gagol]

the leaving work before the end of work day is different, and I dont drink much booze nowadays.

Fearmongering much?

[LordLucless]

I guess "Asteroid Misses Earth, Just Like It's Done Every 4 Years For Millennia" just wasn't catchy enough

Re:Fearmongering much?

[girlintraining]

I guess "Asteroid Misses Earth, Just Like It's Done Every 4 Years For Millennia" just wasn't catchy enough.

What I find interesting is the helpful picture of what an asteroid "50-165 feet across" might look like hitting the Earth. Boy, the size of a foot sure has changed since I last checked...

Surprising number

[Grayhand]

In the last 20 years there have been quite a few of these objects passing within the orbit of the moon, prior to that there were few announcements and it's debatable how many were actually tracked. A disturbing number have been found within days as passing and a few were found after they passed. Just looking at the numbers I'd place the odds at high of an impact. We're coming up on a hundred year anniversary of Tunguska so I'd say we're due for a similar impact any day now. It could be tomorrow or a hundred years from now but statistically we're due now. We aren't talking end of the world because most of the world was only affected by the dust of the last major impact and the odds of one hitting a major city are similar to winning the lottery. Unfortunately the odds are high of an ocean impact and that could be worse than a land impact. Very few of these objects are being tracked in the northern hemisphere and virtually none in the lower hemisphere, I can't remember but I think it's a few percent for the south. We spend trillions on defending against Arab rednecks and a few million a year on tracking near Earth Objects. Our priorities are sadly are on the wrong threats.

Re:Surprising number

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that's what this strange company Planetary Resources wants to do, according to their website. They want to wait for these asteroids to fly by our planet to study and mine them as they come. Hopefully, diverting the dangerous ones is also a part of their plan.

Re:Surprising number

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I think the lack of funding for "asteroid defense" techniques (as opposed to military spending) is a matter of spending money on something they understand versus spending it on something they don't understand at all, (ironically, of course. If we don't study the possibilities, we'll continue to be ignorant) Those making the decisions about spending have absolutely no clue whatsoever about what to do if an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. Hell, half of them couldn't tell you what an asteroid IS.
Even those studying the situation are at odds about what would work and what wouldn't (which is why we need the funding). It's all theories until we actually test some of these ideas (preferably on an asteroid that is not going to hit us) and even then, the individual, widely-varying asteroid composition has a lot to do with the end result.

They understand exactly how to kill people, so that's where they spend their money.

Re:Surprising number

[Anonymous Coward]

Just looking at the numbers I'd place the odds at high of an impact. We're coming up on a hundred year anniversary of Tunguska so I'd say we're due for a similar impact any day now. It could be tomorrow or a hundred years from now but statistically we're due now.

We're not 'due' for anything. The fact that a devastating impact didn't happen yesterday does not increase the odds that it will happen today, it's not as if somebody decides to send an astroid in our direction because he looks on his impact calendar and decides it's been quiet for too long. If every day has an equal likelyhood of a devastating impact happening the average outcome will reflect that likelyhood without days or impacts infuencing each other.

Re:Surprising number

[tehcyder]

The fact that a devastating impact didn't happen yesterday does not increase the odds that it will happen today

No, but the point is that the odds of a devestating impact not happening in the next X years are very low if there has been on average a devestating impact every X years in the past.

If I toss a coin, whether I got a head the last time has no influence on whether I get heads or tails on my next throw. But I can still say that the odds of my not getting a head in the next hundred throws are vanishingly small.

Re:Surprising number

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously dude, learn how statistics and probability work.

Consider this a jar problem with black and white marbles.

This isn't a jar problem where you're taking out a white marble everyday (no asteroid impact) and tossing it away which increases the chance you'll eventually pull the one black marble in the jar (doomsday).

This is a replacement problem. That white marble you pulled goes right back in and the probability you draw the one black one is equally likely on any given day.

Re:Surprising number

[argStyopa]

Well, as much as I probably agree with your general point, the fact is that we've had far more people killed by "Arab Rednecks" over the last 50 years than we have had by meteorites.

Considering that the modern world was pretty much born after 1945, and historical memory is short, our spending priorities make rough sense - not to mention that really it's only been the last 30 years or so that we've had the tech to (maybe) make a difference to an inbound meteorite anyway.

Re:Surprising number

[Anonymous Coward]

What a scientist hears: The probability of an impact is the same as it has always been. This miss does not mean another is due, or that we now have a "safe" period.

What politicians hear: We're safe for another hundred years at least! Cut the funding!

Re:Surprising number

[BasilBrush]

No he's not wrong. You don't understand statistics and probability.

An ordinary coin has a 50% chance of landing heads.

If I toss it, and it lands tails. The next time it is no more likely to land heads. It's still 50%.

If I toss it 3 times and it lands on tails each time, the next time it's still 50% chance it'll land on heads.

If I toss it 100 times and every single time it lands on tails, guess what the probability of it landing on heads the next time is? Yup, it's still 50%.

They are independent events. The coin has no memory.

Likewise if there is an X% chance of a asteroid hitting the earth on and particular day, the fact that one has not hit the earth today does not in any way affect the chances of it hitting tomorrow.

They are independent events. One asteroid doesn't know what another asteroid did or did not do yesterday.

Likewise similar myths about choosing lottery numbers based on previous numbers are all wrong. Despite this, the mathematically ignorant nearly all think they are right.

This bears on your pro-gun arguments. You don't understand statistics. You just google and copy from pro-gun sites, anything you think sounds like it supports guns, ignoring the ones that don't sound like they support guns. You have no basis on which to judge their veracity.

You honestly think copying and pasting data for which you don't understand the stats will somehow progress your particular passion. It doesn't.

And you don't even have the manners to attribute the source of your copy and pasting. Which lowers to point of engaging with you even more.

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

Likewise

No, not likewise, and you are the one not understanding statistics here. Let me try to explain. On Sunday you receive the following information: Uncle Bob will be dropping by this week. On Sunday, the possibility he will drop by is 1/7 for each day of that week. What is the case on Monday if Bob didn't stop by on Sunday? Still 1/7? No, of course not. The only one not understanding statistics here is you. You use statistics the same way Creationists use it, not understanding the simple process of "selection".

Here is another example of selection that for most people is counter intuitive.

You are at a game show. You have three doors (A, B and C) in front of you, one contains a price, the other two are empty. The host knows which door the price is behind. You select door C.

The host then tells you that the price is NOT behind door A. The question then becomes, what should you do now? There are three possibilities. 1/ You can do nothing or you can change your selection, it doesn't matter. 2/ You can stay with C, it has an increased chance of being the correct one or 3/ You can change, B has an increased chance of being the correct one.

The majority of mathematicians will say that nothing has changed, you can stay or change, it doesn't matter. Presumably so would you. The correct answer is 3, you must change door, it now has a significantly higher probability of being the correct one. That is what happens with selection. Things change and probabilities change.

If there is an event that is inevitable within a certain time frame, each day it doesn't happen chances are it will increase the following day. If the time span is very long, the increase is very slight, but it is still there.

This bears on your pro-gun arguments

If you had any data you would of course present it rather than engaging in rather dumb ad-hominem attacks. Sadly for you, you don't have data, just opinion and conviction. Rather lame places to argue from. I would hope you could do better, but you probably can't, so it probably isn't your fault. Hope you get better though. Dumb-ass-conviction-counter-to-data is difficult to recover from. It usually requires a total brain transplant.

Re:Surprising number

[BasilBrush]

You're just digging yourself deeper.

On Sunday you receive the following information: Uncle Bob will be dropping by this week.

Unlike the coin or the asteroids or the lottery, Uncle Bob DOES have a memory, and he has specified a window in which he will appear. (dependent events vs independent events, and time constrained rather than probabilistic.)

That you don't realise this isn't even the same class of problem shows you have even less understanding of prob and stats than was clear before.

You use statistics the same way Creationists use it, not understanding the simple process of "selection".

Selection? Related to the problem of asteroid hit probability? You *are* a moron.

The game show/door problem is the classic Monty Hall problem. It DOES involve selection. Unlike asteroid hits. Again showing you don't understand the class of problem.

If there is an event that is inevitable within a certain time frame, each day it doesn't happen chances are it will increase the following day.

Repeating again, because you are a moron, asteroid strikes are not that kind of problem. There is no particular time frame in which a strike is inevitable. (And furthermore, unlike the problems you brought up, there is no limit to the number of strikes in any particular time frame.) Asteroid strikes are a pure probability per unit time problem.

Again, this reflects on your pro-gun arguments, in that for example you are unable to differentiate between stiffness of gun control legislation stats, and guns per person stats.

You try to pretend you are more intelligent than you are by googling and copy/pasting. It doesn't work. You have to actually understand the stuff Google finds.

Have you never heard the maxim it's better for people to think you;re stupid, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt? You're parading your ignorance like you were walking around with your pants round your ankles.

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

As I said, if you had anything more than ad-hominem, you would have presented it. Clearly you do not.

Re:Surprising number

[BasilBrush]

Revel in your ignorance of math. Or go take a math class. Your choice.

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

Now, to your points.

Unlike the coin or the asteroids or the lottery, Uncle Bob DOES have a memory

Ah, but you see, asteroids, like coins, can have memories when selection is involved. There are a few asteroids that sooner or later are going to hit us. They follow certain rules, and it isn't a question of if, but simply of when. Their "memory" is basically the laws of physics. The fact that we do not KNOW which orbit it is the asteroid will hit us doesn't mean that each orbit is random. It isn't. This means that between now and some unknown point in time (unknown to us just because we have not bee able to calculate it yet) the asteroid will hit. So, if there is, irrespective of our knowledge of it, a point in time in the future when it will hit, each round it doesn't, the probability it is the next passing will go up.

Whether you, me or uncle Bob KNOWS the time is irrelevant. As long as there is a time it will hit, each day will bring us inexorably closer to that time, and each day will have a higher likelihood of being "the" day.

The problem for us is that we do not know it, so we can not calculate the possibility, we can know that the probability increases but not by how much. Let's get back to Bob. Some event, process unknown to us, sets the date for Bobs arrival. Bob doesn't know. The only thing known is that it will happen. Does that change anything? Yes, it does. It removes the knowledge of how much chances increases each day that Bob will drop by. We know it increases, but not by how much. Same with the asteroid. There is one out there. Physics says it'll hit. It is "pre-determined". We know this. We also know that if we can find all candidates, we will be able to tell which asteroid and at what time. Orbital physics isn't that hard. So, yes, today we know that there is a fixed time and place in the future where i big whopper is going to hit. Each day that passes brings that day closer (or in other words, increases chances it is tomorrow).

Let me do this slowly for you once again. The asteroid will hit. It will hit at a set, well-known, pre-determined date in the future. The only problem is the "well-known" part. We don't know that. Is that relevant? Again, with uncle Bob, if we did not know the date he was dropping by, would it change the fact that each day he didn't drop by increase the chance that tomorrow is the day? No, it doesn't. Lack of knowledge on our part is irrelevant. It only means we can no calculate how the probability changes. We still know that the change is positive, in other words, the probability increases. Asteroid hits are not random events, they follow very specific, very well known, rules.

you are unable to differentiate between stiffness of gun control legislation stats, and guns per person stats

What is the purpose of gun control legislation of the type enacted in the UK? Does it have anything to do with reducing the number of guns per person?

But hey, you can continue with retarded ad-hominems, or you can actually present some data supporting your notions. Your inability to do so thus far puts you in the "sad and pathetic" category when coupled with the dumb stuff you actually write.

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

Already covered. The only fool here is you. You are essentially claiming that asteroid hits are random events in the same way that coin tosses are. That is an absurd notion. Absurd in the extreme. The date for the impact is well known and pre determined. It is just not known by us.

So, sorry, you have made a fool out of your self.

Re:Surprising number

[BasilBrush]

You are essentially claiming that asteroid hits are random events in the same way that coin tosses are.

They are. You're probably confused because it occurs to you that the asteroids and planets are in particular points in space, with particular velocities, and follow the rules of physics.

What you're missing is that this also applies to the coins.

The date for the impact is well known and pre determined. It is just not known by us.

Then who is it "well known" by? The aliens that have been abducting you?

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

Oh, and I thought I'd elaborate a little more about Uncle Bob, since you seem not to understand why we, as in "earth scientists" use probabilities in dealing with Uncle Bob's visit when it is governed entirely by deterministic maths. Let me try to explain.

Uncle Bob has decided on a date of arrival. He is 20 years old. We do not know the date of his arrival, but we know that each day it is getting slightly more probable that he will arrive. We can not know by how much it increases, but we do know that it does. So, what can we do to be prepared for his arrival? We can find out when it is more likely he will arrive. Bob's 20, he'll be able to make visits like this until he's 80. So, that gives us a 60 year time span. On average, he'll pop by in 30 years, or about 11000 days. So, on average, the chances of tomorrow being the day for the visits increases by 1/11000.

Remember, again, the date for Uncle Bob's visit is set. It isn't going to change. It isn't random by any measure. Therefore every day he doesn't drop by, chances of it being tomorrow increases ever so slightly.

Now, instead of continuing to be an arrogant moron and spouting nonsensical rubbish. Try with some data please. Preferably some that support your claims. If you can find them.

Re:Surprising number

[BasilBrush]

Ah, but you see, asteroids, like coins, can have memories when selection is involved. There are a few asteroids that sooner or later are going to hit us. They follow certain rules, and it isn't a question of if, but simply of when. Their "memory" is basically the laws of physics.

If the maths of probability as beyond you, then clearly chaos is too. As is the fact that "pre-determination" is philosophy, not science.

Whether you, me or uncle Bob KNOWS the time is irrelevant. As long as there is a time it will hit, each day will bring us inexorably closer to that time, and each day will have a higher likelihood of being "the" day.

You obviously believe this. And you're wrong. There is no SINGULAR event with a count down. There may never be a hit again. Or there may be a million hits tomorrow. Whether or not you believe it's predetermined and unknown, or purely random makes no difference. There is no countdown to a singular event. Simply a probability that an event may happen in a day.

You could learn all about probability and statistics on the Khan Academy website. That would be a better use of your time than setting common myths up for me to knock down.

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

Are you saying that the path of a given asteroid is entirely random? Are you saying that the current location and orbital velocity of the asteroid that eventually will hit earth is random? They are not.

Who knows when the asteroid hits? Probably nobody. Physics does though. The asteroid that eventually will hit earth is currently in an orbit that will make it crash into earth. You could say that the asteroid it self, in it's current orbit "knows" that it will hit earth in so far that it, in its current position and orbital velocity holds the answer to that.

The fact that we do not know when the asteroid will hit doesn't mean it is random, it only appears that we think it is random because you have no knowledge of physics, orbital mechanics or basic astronomy. The date for the impact has been set. It was set a long time ago. We just don't know it. That is irrelevant. Though it does make it necessary for us to use probabilities in calculating. Not because the hit is random, but simply because we do not know all the parameters. That doesn't mean it is random though. Far from it.

Now you can try to argue your point since you have been proven wrong in all your attacks on my position.

Re:Surprising number

[BasilBrush]

we, as in "earth scientists"

You're not a scientist of any sort, as your level of maths is way too low to even get admittance to an undergraduate degree programme in a scientific field.

We both know that. We only have your posturing that's preventing you climbing down.

I've already pointed out the error of your Uncle Bob countdown belief.

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

This appears to be hard for you to understand. I'll do it slowly. Try to put aside your notions for a moment.

There is a very, very small chance that an asteroid will never again hit earth. The probability of this is so fantastically small that we can basically discard it out of hand. It's going to happen.

Now to the actual event. The asteroids in question are governed by basic orbital physics, there are some slightly more complex pieces to this, namely the mass of the asteroid, which changes ever so slightly, but not randomly at times. So, given perfect information, it is possible to determine which asteroid will hit us, and when. Sadly we do not have perfect information, we probably are not even able to get it. We don't need it for you to be wrong.

There is an asteroid A out there that will hit us at time T. Both A and T are well defined, and both A and T are deterministic, not random and they do not change over time. They are determined by the current orbital velocity and mass of A, Earth and other celestial bodies (who are also governed by orbital mechanics). Not random. Deterministic. So, T is set. Every day that is not T brings us closer to T in unknown increments. The increments, as well as T are only available to us through statistics, but that is not due to the nature of A, T and Earth, it is due to our lack of information.

Re:Surprising number

[Anonymous Coward]

The notion that the odds of a predetermined event are increasing up until the predetermined time is silly. They're 0, until they're 1. Neither you or Uncle Bob have been around (or recording the frequency of his visits) long enough for the 30 year "average" to be statistically relevant and there is no guarantee his intended visit will occur before you and your house are destroyed by some other means. At this point, treating his visits as anything but a random event is silly.

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

Oh, and are you ever going to present data that supports your notions?

Re:Surprising number

[smallfries]

You keep talking about a large asteroid that is definitely on a collision course with earth. This is an error. There have been large asteroids that been on collision courses before. There may be more, but it is not certain. Because it is not 100% probable that an unknown large asteroid is currently on a collision course with earth none of your argument is valid, and your arguments about increasing probabilities are incorrect.

Your argument would be valid (but pointless) if you said: "if there is at least one more asteroid on a collision course with earth then the probabillty of impact on a particular day increases with each day it does not strike". Of all the asteroids that strike earth of a given size, one of them is the last.

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

and I have corrected you... and you still have not shown us a single data point supporting your religious notions.

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

Of all the asteroids that strike earth of a given size, one of them is the last.

You are quite right, but then again, the probability of earth having seen the last one (given the number of asteroids in orbit around the sun) that probability is so low that it can be easily set to zero. I mean, we are still talking billions of bodies, most obviously not big enough for an extinction event, but still. That is a lot of rocks (pr ice cubes).

one of them is the last

Yes, but that is, with a probability that is equal to 100% in reality, quite a bit further into the future. In fact, the most likely reason they are going to stop dropping onto earth is that the earth is no longer there to receive them, having been vaporized by the giant star the Sun has turned into.

Re:Surprising number

[DrVxD]

In the last 20 years there have been quite a few of these objects passing within the orbit of the moon

It's been going on for quite a lot longer than 20 years. A LOT longer - more of the order of 4.5 billion years, in fact. It's just that recently we've got a lot better at spotting them them.

Just looking at the numbers I'd place the odds at high of an impact. We're coming up on a hundred year anniversary of Tunguska so I'd say we're due for a similar impact any day now.

Probability doesn't work like that; they're independent events, so the outcome of one does not influence the outcome of the next.

We spend trillions on defending against Arab rednecks and a few million a year on tracking near Earth Objects. Our priorities are sadly are on the wrong threats.

This, on the other hand, I agree with entirely.

Re:Surprising number

[cusco]

When Comet Levy-Shoemaker hit Jupiter it was generally believed by astronomers to be a once-in-a-lifetime event. Since then we have seen the impacts left behind by at least two and possibly three other similar events. It makes me wonder if they haven't drastically underestimated the number of bodies wandering around the solar system.

Re:Surprising number

[OneAhead]

If you don't even read the other guy's arguments, you're doomed to remain an ignorant kook (and waste everyone's time showcasing your ignorance). Did you even consider what he meant with "what you're missing is that this also applies to the coins"? I'll make one last try to make you see it. Who knows what side of the coin will end up? PHYSICS DOES! Who knows in what position the die will come to rest? PHYSICS DOES! Who knows which ball will be the next to fall out of the lottery machine? PHYSICS DOES! Who knows where the ball in the roulette will end up? PHYSICS DOES! Who knows where the slot machine will stop? PHYSICS DOES! Any process that isn't ruled by quantum effects is deterministic (and it is sometimes speculated that even quantum randomness is the result of underlying deterministic processes we haven't yet discovered). but you know what? IT DOES NOT MATTER! As long as the distribution of the outcomes can pass for random and WE can't predict them, they can be approached as random for practical purposes. There's no such thing as being overdue for a meteor strike because on the time scales we're talking about, the odds for a strike are not influenced by the time since the last strike. This much can be inferred from the very laws of physics you're invoking, so if you want to argue otherwise, you have to propose a physical mechanism for large meteor strikes to be approximately evenly spaced in time (on the time scale of decades). And excuse me for not holding my breath.

Re:Surprising number

[OneAhead]

Negative, the burden of proof is on you. Physics says that there should be no periodicity in large meteor strikes on the time scales we're talking about. The available geological data seems to confirm this. Up to you to demonstrate statistically significant periodicity. And to publish it in Science.

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

the odds for a strike are not influenced by the time since the last strike

Nobody ever said they were. What the odds are influenced by is the time until the next strike. The future is influenced by the future, not the past. In the case of a deterministic situation. A future coin toss is not deterministic at all (unless you go into metaphysics), since it is not governed by known laws of physics as you claim. If it is, please tell me which laws of physics applies, prior to the toss, to the person tossing the coin. Which laws of physics govern his choice of time for tossing the coin? Which deterministic laws of physics determine the force, angle and spin with which the tosser will toss? Answer is none. The coin analogy is nothing like an analogy.

Let's examine time T, where there is an asteroid strike in our future, and there is also a coin toss in our future. Given perfect information about the coin and the asteroid, is it in any way possible to calculate anything about the two? For the asteroid, yes, I can calculate it's position at any time in the future. How about the coin? No, I can not. Whether the coin ends up heads or tail is impossible to know, even if I know everything about the coin. I do not, you see, know anything about the toss. Nothing at all. Also, it is not possible to find out anything about the toss.

So, no, the coin toss analogy does not apply in any way at all.

Re:Surprising number

[Anonymous Coward]

They are determined by the current orbital velocity and mass of A, Earth and other celestial bodies (who are also governed by orbital mechanics). Not random. Deterministic.

If it's random, then you can try to calculate probability. If it's not random, just deterministic, then you can't calculate probability, it's just: if T != today, then probability is 0%, if T = today, then probability is 100%.

So, T is set. Every day that is not T brings us closer to T in unknown increments

This argument is totally wrong: it brings us closer to T in increments of a day! (probability could not apply if deterministic, then it's just a countdown).

Re:Surprising number

[BasilBrush]

There is an asteroid A out there that will hit us at time T. Both A and T are well defined, and both A and T are deterministic, not random and they do not change over time. They are determined by the current orbital velocity and mass of A, Earth and other celestial bodies (who are also governed by orbital mechanics). Not random. Deterministic. So, T is set. Every day that is not T brings us closer to T in unknown increments.

OK, so frame the question like that. From the point of view of omnipotence (which we don't have, but for the sake of argument). Then your claim that the probability reduces each day that there's not an event is still wrong. Why? Because the probability is zero on each day before the predetermined time, and 100% on the day of the event.

it is due to our lack of information

If you believe in a pre-determined universe, yes. That's the first time you have said anything true. The probability is due to our lack of information about the future. We can come up with a probability per day by examining what has happened in the past. We do not have enough information to change the probability from day to day. (Discounting that at some stage an actual asteroid will appear in someone's telescope - we're talking probability here, not observation.) Whether or not an event happens today, from the information we have, it doesn't change the probability of an event tomorrow.

And if you'd ever studied probability you would know this.

Re:Surprising number

[OneAhead]

Fine, if you're one of those people who are not willing to accept that the decisions we make are the results of the firing of our neurons, which is governed by cold, hard and well-understood physics, then just forget about the coin toss and focus on the lottery machine. I can give you the positions and velocities of the balls, the timings, and any other parameters you need with a 10^-5 relative error, and you still won't be able to predict the outcome even with the best simulation software. Why? Because it's a chaotic system, and a 10^-6 error can completely change to outcome. And guess what is also a chaotic system? Orbital mechanics. You can predict it a little bit into the future, but the further you go forward in time, the more the arbitrary small errors in your initial measurements are amplified, and after a certain time, it's just all random for practical purposes.

However, all of this is missing the point. What really matters (which you yet again conveniently ignored), is that
(1) the distribution of the outcomes can pass for random
(2) we can't predict the outcomes
These are sufficient conditions to approach the outcome as random for practical purposes. You already conceded (2), and as for (1), as I pointed out in another post, physics and statistics says that there should be no periodicity in large meteor strikes on the time scales we're talking about. The available geological data seems to confirm this. Up to you to demonstrate statistically significant periodicity. And get it published in Science or Nature.

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

and what you are missing is this. If the probability of the earth being hit at some point in the future is 100%, and it actually is, then it doesn't matter. It is irrelevant. If there is a point in the future where the earth will be hit by an asteroid, any day that passes increases the probability that tomorrow is the day. The time in the future where the asteroid is going to hit is irrelevant, it is also irrelevant whether we can calculate it. If it is there, every day we get closer to it, and every day, chances of it being tomorrow increases.

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

Again, slowly, if there is a time in the future when something will happen, we can, if the event happens with some sort of regularity, calculate the probability for it happening within a certain time frame. We use this type of calculation because we lack information. This doesn't give us much, but it is a fun game. It is also irrelevant in this case, since what we are discussing is not when something will happen. What is being debated is whether there is an increase in probability when nothing happens.

So, I'll try again. If there a 100% chance that something will happen at some point in time T1 as measured from a starting point T0 defined as now, every day between T0 and T1, chances of it happening that day increases a little bit.

There are so many objects spinning around here that we know one will hit sooner or later. We have no clue when, but we can guesstimate it based on previous events. That guesstimate is, for this exercise irrelevant. What is relevant, and self-evidently true, is as you move through time from T0 towards T1, irrespective of the actual value of T1, the chances for today being T1 increases ever so slightly. More if T1 has a large value, less with a smaller value. Irrespective of any information we have about T1, we do know that as we move away from T0 we are moving towards T1 and therefore increasing the probability T1 is today. It is linear maths involving nothing but addition. It is also self-evident.

Re:Surprising number

[BasilBrush]

So, I'll try again. If there a 100% chance that something will happen at some point in time T1 as measured from a starting point T0 defined as now, every day between T0 and T1, chances of it happening that day increases a little bit.

And your try fails once again. That does not describe problem of asteroids hitting earth. It describes for example the day you die. A one off occurrence with time constraints. Asteroid impacts are not in that category.

It doesn't matter how many times you try this, you're still going to be wrong. Because your basic layman's feeling that an asteroid impact must become more probable if there wasn't one today is wrong. No argument, nor alternate way of looking at it will make it right. All those people that have told you that know more about probability than you do.

It appears stubbornness is a more important thing for you than looking ever more stupid, the more you post.

Re:Surprising number

[OneAhead]

Where did you ever get the idea that the probability is 100%? It is very very close to 100%, yet there's an unimaginably small but nonzero chance that the sun will swallow the earth before the latter is hit by the next big asteroid. Unless of course you believe in some kind of prophecy that the earth will be hit by a big asteroid, then you're right... within the framework of your belief system. Which you should have stated before wasting our time on this discussion.

Re:Surprising number

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is coming from someone who chooses to start a discussion with the tired old "BZZT! Wrong" line???

Re:Surprising number

[terjeber]

It is also interesting to see that you are entirely incapable of posting without a personal attack and utterly incapable of providing data that supports your position. Jesus freaks like you are pretty sad. Maybe one day you'll grow up, but more likely, one day you will go out and rape young boys and then kill your self (just to put the debate at a level you appear to be comfortable with).

Was it hard during your formative years, having your dad and your grand dad raping you repeatedly with your mother and grandmother standing by cheering?

heck yea!

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck yes I would! I need to go pick up more ammo from academy.

Re:heck yea!

[tehcyder]

Heck yes I would! I need to go pick up more ammo from academy.

Whatever your survivalist fantasies may be, if you can't breathe the air you're going to be in trouble.

Wow!

[El Puerco Loco]

Earth's cat-like reflexes never fail to impress.

Pretty remarkable how many there are

[GodfatherofSoul]

I figured objects getting so close would be a very infrequent occurrence and at that range gravity would surely pull the object into us. I'm not sure if it's good news that objects have to get much closer to get sucked in or bad news that we're seeing so many near misses.

Re:Pretty remarkable how many there are

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't let this kind of news affect your peace of mind. These insights into what's going on don't change the fact that devastating impacts on earth are so rare that it's highly unlikely you will be affected by one.

Re:Pretty remarkable how many there are

[lurker1997]

There's not much chance of gravity pulling something into us in that way. Think about how long it would take for a ball dropped a few hundred thousand km above the earth to fall to the ground. Any object moving fast enough that it has passed the earth by during that time will not be pulled into us.

Re:Pretty remarkable how many there are

[Anonymous Coward]

Toutatis, at least, is an asteroid that is in orbital resonance with Earth and Jupiter; so really, it *is* being strongly affected by Earth's gravity every time it passes. It's just had enough time that the effect is more or less stable with every orbit, which is why we can be pretty confident in where it'll be for another 600 years, and in all that time it doesn't wind up actually hitting us. Probably.

Re:Pretty remarkable how many there are

[IndustrialComplex]

Gravity is a very weak force, it also gets weaker in an inverse square relationship with distance.

Consider that on the very surface of Earth, the entire planet is pulling on you with... what? 150-200 lbs of force? Jump into the air, and you have literally applied more force as you jumped than the entire planet pulled back on you due to gravity. Of course, you came back down, but that's because gravity was pulling on you the whole time, but you still could outpace it during the time when you were in contact with the ground.

Now consider that this asteroid was something like 18 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon, and it was moving very very very fast. We generally don't capture objects due to gravity, we capture objects due to our paths intersecting with the path of the object.

To capture an object like this due to gravity, would be like trying to alter the trajectory of a baseball just after it was pitched using nothing more than a drinking straw and the power of your lungs.

Re:Pretty remarkable how many there are

[DrVxD]

bad news that we're seeing so many near misses.

That we're seeing so many near misses is mostly indicative of the improvements in our technology. The better our sky watching gets, the more we'll see - it's not that there will actually be more near misses - it's just that we're getting better at spotting them.

Re:Pretty remarkable how many there are

[GodfatherofSoul]

Very interesting, I just figured there was a lot more force involved.

Nice Title

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, we never got his by two astroids. I also never got eaten by elephants, painted green or suffered PTSD from my tour in Iraq. During the same time, Earth also avoided becoming square in shape, changing it's color to purple, mutating into a giant donut, being hit by two million other astroids, avoided collapsing and many other things. Perhaps the title should have been given some grammatical thought and reworded such as "Earth narrowly Avoids Collisions With Pair of Asteroids" or "Astroids pass close to earth". /dn
"My Alligator repellant must be working. I have been attacked by Alligators on Whistler mountain in nearly 25 years"

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[Anonymous Coward]

everyone else would too and you'd all die stuck in traffic

I'd want to know...

[LMahesa]

If it was known that an Extinction Level Event was headed our way and had a fair to high chance of actually happening, I'd want to know... however, I fully understand WHY we wouldn't be told.

Re:I'd want to know...

[19thNervousBreakdown]

We'd be told. Stuff big enough to wipe us out is easily visible to amateur astronomers. Just one of those having a moral system that dictates he must tell, or one that will enjoy kicking off the worldwide orgy of sex and murder, and it's out there. The government would have the choice between telling themselves before the amateurs get it out there, in a way they choose, or making it a failed coverup attempt.

What do you suppose they'll pick?

Re:I'd want to know...

[mark-t]

I would dare say that I don't think there are very many extinction-level type events could plausibly happen anytime in the foreseeable future which could also wipe out the human race unless the incident were also actually detrimental to the entire physiology of the planet. I do not think that a collision of the magnitude that led to the wiping out the dinosaurs, for instance, would have the same effect on us. Certainly no small number of people would die, but I do believe humanity itself would endure.

My reasoning is simply this. We have intellect. Dinosaurs did not.

Re:I'd want to know...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If it was known that an Extinction Level Event was headed our way and had a fair to high chance of actually happening, I'd want to know... however, I fully understand WHY we wouldn't be told.

It wasn't. It's crappy journalism, that's all. There was a small asteroid that we didn't know about that got pretty close and that wouldn't have done anything serious had it hit us, and then there was Toutatis with its horse-shoe orbit that gets it close to Earth, but nowhere near enough to hit us, and we know that at least for several centuries, it shouldn't. You know, celestial mechanics is, after all, one of the exactest sciences that we've ever had. Someone simply mixed these two things in their mind, and many readers still do, it seems. Even here, which is a shame.

Re:I'd want to know...

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

I'd want to know if the knowledge would allow for sufficient preparation. If scientists found out about the impactor only hours before impact, I'd treat it as an unexpectedly massive earthquake. Neither would I want to know if the astral body is a wandering black hole and cannot be deflected even if its approach was known years in advance. Better die in peace.

I'd want to know if the asteroid is of manageable size and there's a rat's ass chance that we can petition our respective governments to stop all their goddamn wars and spend the global defense budget diverting the asteroid with multiple space missions that provide for back-up plans in case mission A fails.

Re:I'd want to know...

[LMahesa]

Perhaps I was too vague; I wasn't saying that THIS was an ELE, just that I would prefer to be told in such a case.

Re:I'd want to know...

[Electricity Likes Me]

I would dare say that I don't think there are very many extinction-level type events could plausibly happen anytime in the foreseeable future which could also wipe out the human race unless the incident were also actually detrimental to the entire physiology of the planet. I do not think that a collision of the magnitude that led to the wiping out the dinosaurs, for instance, would have the same effect on us. Certainly no small number of people would die, but I do believe humanity itself would endure.

My reasoning is simply this. We have intellect. Dinosaurs did not.

That's only worth something if you can apply it. We're not so good at that when our civilization support structures become non-functional. You might note that for most of our history, our intellect was enormously repressed because our civilization was primitive.

Re:I'd want to know...

[mark-t]

Who said anything about civilization?

I was talking about humanity, not civilization. Evolution has gifted us with an unrivaled (on this planet) ability to adapt to all kinds of circumstances through judicious application of intellect alone far faster than physiological evolution could hope to achieve. This ability is entirely orthogonal to the support structures that you are referring to which are largely derived from technology.

Humanity would survive. Civilization? Maybe, maybe not.

Re:I'd want to know...

[Electricity Likes Me]

Which is my point: you're overvaluing human intelligence as a survival trait sans civilization.

There's nothing humans can do to survive a global event, much like there's nothing the dinosaurs were able to do. An asteroid impact of that scale ignites a global firestorm - a whole region of the Earth catches fire over the next 24 hours as the superheated air is rolled over the landscape. There isn't a way to think your way out of that problem - you either get out of the way (which you can only do if you have satellite networks, communications etc. and even then - it's impractical to move millions of people that quickly) - or you die.

Re:I'd want to know...

[mark-t]

Humanity was able to *develop* a civilization in the first place because of that intellect.... and we can utilize that intellect to adapt more quickly to a changing environment than evolution can otherwise manage with physiological changes. I'm not overvaluing it... I'm presenting it as a simple fact that it is unmatched by anything else evolution has been able drum up, and you have yet to offer any evidence that suggests that mankind would actually not any incident which does not, at the same time, utterly destroy the viability of the planet as a sustainable biosphere, or otherwise require that evolution start over practically from scratch.

Re:I'd want to know...

[cusco]

Toutatis isn't in a horseshoe orbit, although its orbit is in resonance with Earth. It would be cool if there were an asteroid that large which was in a horseshoe orbit, as it would be a great candidate for colonization, but the only ones found so far are quite small.

Re:I'd want to know...

[Electricity Likes Me]

The fact human progress over the last 200 years has been faster then (and involved reinventing most of the technology of) the 30,000+ years before gives the answer: it took us a long time to develop the basic structures that let us advance further then that - but once we did, look at all that's been accomplished.

Re:I'd want to know...

[mark-t]

You're talking about technology and civilizations... I've been talking about the human race. As a species.

We survived some of the coldest periods in earth's history because of our intellect, in spite of the fact that we are not physiologically well adapted to colder temperatures. I'm quite convinced that our intellect would enable us (not necessarily me, personally) to survive any other plausible climate change that could result from a cataclysm that does not, at the same time, render the planet entirely uninhabitable.

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[gagol]

Since I live in a remote rural area, you are right, everyone else would be stuck in traffic. I (and my fellow ruralers) would laugh and enjoy booze!

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[ShanghaiBill]

I would definitely want to know. I would leave work, buy booze and party like there is no tomorrow.

But there would almost certainly be a tomorrow. The asteroid was only 50-165 feet in diameter. That is about the estimated size of the Tunguska asteroid/comet, which killed zero people. Even if an asteroid that size hit the ocean or a major city, 99.9% of the people on Earth would survive.

If we were hit by the bigger (three mile diameter) asteroid, it would only have 1/8th the energy of the Yucatan asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. Unlike the dinos, we have the ability to eat canned food and stored grain, so many if not most people would likely survive.

8 Days Early

[wadeal]

It's not the 21st yet...

Re:8 Days Early

[Githaron]

And they were off by 139,500 miles!

Re:8 Days Early

[mrbester]

Be thankful for the rounding error.

Pair of Asteroids missed Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless Earth altered course, or wobbled or whatever to not get hit. Avoidance is an active skill... getting missed is just lucky.

WWIII

[Githaron]

It sounds like if there is a World War 3 and any humanity manages to survive, we will be extinct in 600 years since WWIII will probably set us back far enough that we will not have the means to stop the 4179 Toutatis when it comes around for the last time.

Re:WWIII

[cusco]

Albert Einstein was asked by a journalist what weapons would be used in World War Three. His reply (paraphrased) was, "I don't know what weapons will be used in WWIII, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones."

reality check

[Anonymous Coward]

quick. You have an hour to live. What is suddenly important? Finishing the cover page of your tpms report? Rebalancing your portfolio to survive the fiscal cliff? Whether you should buy turkey bacon or regular?

Of course not. You go home and hug your wife and kids close. And tell them you love them.

Now. Do you really need a massive rock slamming into the planet to get you to set your priorities? Go home and hug your wife and kids and tell them you love them.

Quit worrying. START LIVING.

T

Asterix and Obelix

[chthon]

You know that the Gauls in Asterix are only afraid of the sky falling on their head. And their favorite exclamation is 'By Toutatis!'.

Re:Asterix and Obelix

[Adeptus_Luminati]

WOW! 25 years after reading the entire book series (several times over)... you point out this astonishing fact I had never before realized!

Re:Asterix and Obelix

[tehcyder]

You know that the Gauls in Asterix are only afraid of the sky falling on their head. And their favorite exclamation is 'By Toutatis!'.

That's because Toutatis was a major Celtic god . The naming of the asteroid happened in 1989 i.e. after the Asterix books had been using it for a while.

So the naming was presumably a deliberate reference to the Asterix books, or at the very least it used the same god as its basis.

Re:Asterix and Obelix

[abigsmurf]

It's surprising just how much much history I learnt from Asterix.

And I learnt about Orgies, very messy orgies.

Re:Asterix and Obelix

[Anonymous Coward]

I learned never to drop my bread in the fondue during the orgy.

2012 averted

[wakeboarder]

Aren't they a few days early? This 2012 thing is turning out to be more like Y2K

Re:2012 averted

[wilhoitm]

No, they were not a few days early! Yesterday was 12/12/12 ! :o Let's hope we don't have more surprises on 12/21/12!

Re:2012 averted

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, casting a prediction several hundreds of years in the future, and being off by 9 days and a couple of 1000's of kilometers is not bad at all!

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[Anonymous Coward]

Just imagine a society where people would act like this _without_ any threat. Every Day... Paradise is possible!

I would like to know

[infidel_heathen]

If an asteroid was going to strike the Earth in a few hours, I would want to know, so I can start drinking shitload of scotch. I am definitely not dying sober.

Re:Just call me if an asteroid is about to hit

[Anonymous Coward]

qft

quit fucking trolling ?

that was probably...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the north korean satellite which went out of control!

It will happen

[Anonymous Coward]

This was the cataclysmic impact which could have happened. It was told to Camping by the ancient Mayan Gods. Just wait, it will happen sooner or later.

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[thej1nx]

I suppose unlike the dinosaurs, we can also survive for a long long time without needing to breathe? Cretaceous atmosphere is supposed to have been much more oxygen rich(50% more apparently) based on QMS analysis of ancient air bubbles trapped in amber. The higher oxygen content plausibly explains the huge sizes attained by many species too(since the related metabolism could be supported back then). I suppose the said 99.9% of the people of earth will all evolve overnight to make do with 50% less oxygen again? How about no sunlight for years? Stored grains and canned food will support you for years, with crop failures?

Also keep in mind, that all the dried dead plants from lack of sunlight will give rise to plenty of inflammable carbon fuel lying around. We are talking about a world wide wildfire. It is interesting how some people think of meteorite as something like a huge nuke, that will kill everything directly/instantly.

Close calls like these do need to be made as sensational as possible, to remind people how important it is to not put all your eggs in one basket, and why cutting NASA's budget is like deciding to do away with life jackets on a ship, so as to "not waste money".

Ask the Magic 8 Ball.

[UltraZelda64]

The fact that 2012 XE5 was discovered only a few days before the encounter prompted Minnesota Public Radio to poll its listeners with the following question: If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an hour, would you want to know?"

Seriously, would it really matter? That said, assuming that were to happen, yes--I would personally like to know, so if I am one of the only few remaining survivors I would at least know what just happened and what the fuck is going on. But if you end up dying in an hour with everyone else, it's not like it matters much.

Any good sources on that?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's strange. Searching for 2012 XE5 only leads to news from questionable sites.
Is there anything like NASA reporting on that issue?

We need an urban Tunguska to wake us up

[Rogerborg]

Obviously over your city, not mine.

Sadly, it's essentially career ending for a politician to support funding for "crazy stuff" like asteroid detection or diversion. Perhaps if they claimed they'd received it as a revelation from their favourite brand of Invisible Sky Giant it might be considered rational though.

Re:We need an urban Tunguska to wake us up

[dkleinsc]

Doesn't work: The US has had several major cities completely wrecked by hurricanes and flooding in the past decade, and still doesn't seem to think that this might be a problem we should look into addressing more thoroughly.

Too early.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they missed, it’s not 2012/12/21 yet. Duh.

How is this news?

[wonkey_monkey]

Earth Avoids Collisions With Pair of Asteroids

This has been happening every day for years.

"Lunar Length" ?!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lunar Length" ?!
You made that meaningless term up, didn't you.

Re:"Lunar Length" ?!

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It means the mean distance between Earth and Moon. In this case, it "missed" us by seven million km. Hardly worth mentioning, if you ask me. It's already been much closer to Earth than that, and for quite some time, it's not going to approach us nowhere nearly that close.

Re:"Lunar Length" ?!

[eegad]

Actually, isn't lunar length a measurement of time?

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an asteroid about to hit Earth within an hour.
It'll evaporate in the upper atmosphere within seconds of coming into said atmosphere.

Enjoy, and regards to your boss.

Satellite fly-by to asteroid 4179 Toutatis

[Taco Cowboy]

There will be a human-made satellite that will engage in a fly-by to asteroid 4179 Toutatis

The satellite is China's Chang'e 2 and it will rendezvous with 4179 Toutatis.

There are two conflicting reports of the rendezvous date -

According to wikipedia the rendezvous date will be 13th December 2012 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4179_Toutatis

According to another source - http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/20120614-change-2-toutatis.html - the rendezvous date will fall on 6th, January, 2013.

In your sleep

[formfeed]

You ever have that feeling that you are falling and then wake up?

Guess what...

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[gsslay]

Your rosie outlook rather depends on humanity acting logically and collectively after the impact. What's more likely is mass panic, murderous conflict over extreme shortages, and a large part of the global damage done being self-inflicted.

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, a small remainder of civilisation could probably survive even if the sun got blotted out for years. There would be massive starvation and conflict, but bear in mind we have the technology to generate our own sunlight. It wouldn't be too hard to rig up some floodlights that provide crop-friendly wavelengths and shine them over some fields. Obviously not enough to feed the entire world, or even an entire country (hence starvation and conflict) but almost certainly enough to keep a sizeable population alive until the not-so-metaphorical dust settles.

Home planet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we have more than one?

Reversal

[Anonymatt]

I say the asteroid missed US.

Tunguska?

[abies]

Actually, we are. A 50-165 foot asteroid can sneak up on us, but that isn't going to do much. It has less energy than the 9.0 Fukushima Earthquake, which killed ~10,000 people.

And how much energy from earthquake goes into actual surface damage? I was under impression that vast majority of it is used to shake rocks up and down, which is quite different from releasing same energy in something similar to surface nuclear strike.

I think we should be comparing it to Tunguska event rather than earthquakes. Imagine Tunguska happening over one of densly populated areas. I don't think that it would end up being 2-hours news.

Re:Tunguska?

[DerekLyons]

I think we should be comparing it to Tunguska event rather than earthquakes. Imagine Tunguska happening over one of densly populated areas.

Probably 80-95% of the Earth's surface is either very lightly populated landmass, or open ocean far enough away from a densely populated landmass that a Tunguska level event would cause little noticeable damage.

Seriously, while 30 odd megatons sounds really, really big... compared to the total surface are of the planet, it's really, really small.

Correction: "We already HOPE that Toutatis ...

[OneSmartFellow]

We already know that Toutatis will not hit Earth for hundreds of year

Neglecting to consider that Toutatis could easily hit another (or pass very near another) reasonably sized object, thereby modifying it's course enough to hit us on its next pass.

Re:Correction: "We already HOPE that Toutatis ...

[wonkey_monkey]

Neglecting to consider that Toutatis could easily hit another (or pass very near another) reasonably sized object

Yes, I'm sure Lance Benner of NASA's Near Earth Object Program forgot to check whether there are any such objects in the vicinity. Better tell him quick.

Our "Nemesis" will get us.

[SternisheFan]

One theory is that another sun named 'Nemesis' is the cause of major extinctions every 26 million years. It's thought that Nemesis alters asteroid orbits enough to bombard the Earth.

"This hypothetical "death star" or "death companion" of the Sun has received a name: Nemesis. In the Greek mythology Nemesis was the spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to hubris, vengeful fate personified as a remorseless goddess. According to the hypothesis, Nemesis periodically (approximately every 26 million years) passes through a denser region of the Oort cloud, disrupting the orbits of comets, and sending millions of comets into the inner solar system and potential collision with the Earth. But, many geologists are convinced that mass extinctions on Earth are not periodic, so they see no need for such a star. Nless, Richard Muller and his colleagues have embarked on the difficult search for a possible, dim companion to the Sun." :

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_nemesis07.htm

Re:Our "Nemesis" will get us.

[Anonymous Coward]

If something like a "star" passed through Oort's cloud, we wouldn't have to worry about any Oort's cloud objects ever anymore. Just like Jupiter sweeps outer solar system from weird stuff and either pulls it in or slingshots it out permanently, anything that size would clean up Oort's cloud for good.

Re:Our "Nemesis" will get us.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another hypothesis is that there is a small teapot in orbit between the Earth and Mars. It is just about as credible as the Nemesis hypothesis.

Re:Our "Nemesis" will get us.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another hypothesis is that there is a small teapot in orbit between the Earth and Mars. It is just about as credible as the Nemesis hypothesis.

The only problem is that you don't know what you're talking about. The OP does. This theory carries a lot of weight, explains odd perturbations in the orbits of the planets in our system. Educate yourself.

Re:Our "Nemesis" will get us.

[cusco]

The Nemesis theory is pretty well disproved. Equipment available today would be easily capable of detecting any such mass anywhere near our sun. For that matter, equipment is so sensitive that it would be impossible to have NOT detected it so far. Sorry about that.

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah the Tunguska asteroid killing zero people didn't have anything to with the fact that zero people lived in the Siberian boreal forests at the time or anything. NYC would be just fine.

I'd take my sportcar pedal to the metal

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was 100% sure I'd take my Porsche and take it to the highway to its max speed and stay there waiting for the end ; )

Who knows: I may get lucky and die in a car crash just minutes before earth is destroyed ; )

Re:Correction: "We already HOPE that Toutatis ...

[OneSmartFellow]

You make me laugh...Do you suppose the totality of objects in our solar system is known ?

Jeezus, NASA (and others) find new objects of Toutatis's size nearly on a daily basis, how many smaller objects do you think there are , most of which are uncharted - for the obvious reason that they haven't been detected yet?

But, you're confident that some guy at NASA (trying to sound important) "knows" that none of them are going to affect Toutatis's path without telegraphing that information to him first.

APOPHIS is the one to worry about... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a read, & think about 2029 + 2036 -> http://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-apophis-due-to-pass-close-in-2029

APK

P.S.=> Yes, there's daily life to concern yourself with, however - I just thought I'd "toss this one into the mix" to see how it "stirs up the sauce" in this article's comments...

... apk

Avoid..?

[docilespelunker]

Did we really avoid it? Did we jump out of the way? Did we cunningly hide behind something or choose not to bother going round the sun this time to avoid doom? No. If the small lumps of rock missed us without intervention then we certainly didn’t do any avoiding. So really what happened is: Orbit A had an interestingly (if you find a lump of rock interesting) proximity to orbit B.

Re:Correction: "We already HOPE that Toutatis ...

[wonkey_monkey]

But, you're confident that some guy at NASA (trying to sound important)

(doing his job)

"knows" that none of them are going to affect Toutatis's path

I'm confident that the guys at NASA know better than any of us how large and how close an asteroid would have to be to have such an effect, and the probability of such an asteroid remaining undetected at this time. If they're doing their jobs properly, they probably have a very good handle on those numbers, and it seems reasonable to assume that such an event is too improbable to mention.

Or do you want p-values to be specified whenever someone abuses the word "know" in such a heinous fashion?

"Looking For a Friend," the home game

[Shoten]

The fact that 2012 XE5 was discovered only a few days before the encounter prompted Minnesota Public Radio to poll its listeners with the following question: If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an hour, would you want to know?"

Sure! Keira Knightley is smokin' hot!

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[Anonymous Coward]

50% less oxygen = the same ogygen per breath as in ca. 5500m nowadays (500m=540hPa, with 0m=1013hPa).
While breathing in the upper slopes of the andes and himalayas might become problematic, most people nowadays live between 0-500m and could survive above 5000m, so a large number of people would survive without problems, the rest with some oxygen-adding masks.
Maybe even if it would be a sudden drop.

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[demonlapin]

What is your proposed solution for - let us be honest - the massive reduction in the number of humans that would have to occur in a SHTF scenario? I don't think they'll take lightly to a lottery that ends in gas chambers.

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could survive like life did after that asteroid, under water. Build geothermal generators, power UV lights, desalination plants, and air filtration systems. Or even underground like in the Matrix?

Just seems more likely in any reasonable amount of time with current technology.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Glad to see people have their priorities straight

[artfulshrapnel]

From the Minnesota Public Radio Replies:
"I'd want my parents, brother, sister, and my niece & nephew to know, too, so we could all come together with our extensive pet collections, drink wine (well, not the kids) and talk about how much we love each other." (emphasis mine)

Yeah. Wouldn't want your kids drinking an hour before the world ends. Imagine what it would do to their health...

Also some people seem to miss the point that knowing WOULD help people to survive, especially if they weren't directly at the impact site. If the thing hit in North Dakota, and you lived in New Hampshire? You'd still be seriously affected, but it'd make a huge difference whether you were in a tall building or a basement, or if you were standing outside at the time.

People should be told, so they can take whatever preventative (or therapeutic) measures they need to before the impact.

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[edxwelch]

and that's ignoring the fact that society would break down. People would start killing each other for the remaining food resources, just to stay alive.

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[Anonymous Coward]

"Even if an asteroid that size hit the ocean or a major city, 99.9% of the people on Earth would survive."

Even if an asteroid would kill the entire population of the US, 99.6% of the people on Earth would survive.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was the asteroids that swerved when they realized the were ten days early...

And we missed it again

[whitroth]

Early in slashdot's life, at a previous passage of toutitis, I tried to get people interested in forming a group to push a mission to it, to shove it into orbit around Earth, say, around geosync, so we'd have something for a *real* space station, but noooo, you guys blew me off. Just wait till it hits, then you'll be sorry....

                      mark

Re:And we missed it again

[cusco]

Can you imagine the noise the end-timers would make if we tried it? Makes me chuckle just thinking about it.

Make Colonies not War

[VortexCortex]

"It was discovered just days earlier" this means we need to stop being moronic about spending TOO MUCH on Space Programs when they're the only thing that can actually save the planet. The dinosaurs didn't have a space program... All of our eggs are in one basket. Priority #1 should be creating a self sustaining colony of humans off world. Priority #1.5 should be getting out to the asteroid belt and nudging a few into orbit around the Moon. We can mine their materials that are free of expensive gravity wells to build space platforms and do awesome science, but that's of secondary importance to being able to quickly dislodge one and use it as a pool-cue to tap an Earth ending Asteroid out of harm's way, or use them as gravity tugs to pull them off a collision course. End the fucking wars, "Private, you've just been promoted to Space Cadet."

It would be a terrible shame to have sentient life snuffed out of this corner of the Universe just because Humans suck at prioritizing.

18 Lunar Distances?

[aoism]

Lunar Distance = 384,400km Venus comes as close as 38,000,000km (http://www.universetoday.com/14152/venus-distance-from-earth/) AKA, the asteroids came as close as Venus is to earth on it's shortest point. Hooray for sensationalism.

grammatical choices

[Anonymous Coward]

I beg to differ, sir. Earth did not avoid anything. You make it sound as if the planet dodged out of the path of the two asteroids.

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[NikeHerc]

It'll evaporate in the upper atmosphere...

Ever heard of Meteor Crater (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Crater)?

Re:Surprising number - see this updated chart

[Anonymous Coward]

http://spaceweather.com/ near the bottom of the homepage is chart of
"Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters"

Feb 15th is a notable date for this asteroid http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2012%20DA14&orb=1
passing within .09 ld (lunar distance) Its estimated at 58 metres in size.

So enjoy Valentines Day.... juss sayin :)

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose unlike the dinosaurs, we can also survive for a long long time without needing to breathe? Cretaceous atmosphere is supposed to have been much more oxygen rich(50% more apparently) based on QMS analysis of ancient air bubbles trapped in amber. The higher oxygen content plausibly explains the huge sizes attained by many species too(since the related metabolism could be supported back then). I suppose the said 99.9% of the people of earth will all evolve overnight to make do with 50% less oxygen again?

There's about 66% less oxygen at the maximum altitude we're allowed to fly unpressurized passenger planes, so yes. (Well, technically "no", since no evolution would be required, but "yes" to your implied question of whether or not we could breathe such an atmosphere.)

How about no sunlight for years? Stored grains and canned food will support you for years, with crop failures?

That's kinda the point of storing grains and canning food...

Also keep in mind, that all the dried dead plants from lack of sunlight will give rise to plenty of inflammable carbon fuel lying around. We are talking about a world wide wildfire.

Being dried-out and therefore incredibly lightweight, it seems like a lot of the leaves and such would be blown into the oceans without other small plants to stop them. At least in mostly flat coastal areas like Florida. Plus, the same storms that bring lightning typically bring rain as well.

Close calls like these do need to be made as sensational as possible, to remind people how important it is to not put all your eggs in one basket, and why cutting NASA's budget is like deciding to do away with life jackets on a ship, so as to "not waste money".

I certainly agree with you there. Didn't Elon Musk recently claim to have a viable-on-paper plan to send 8k or 80k people per year to a colony on Mars or something? Maybe he could help NASA get their costs back under control so they can restart manned space exploration.

Re:If an asteroid were to strike Earth within an h

[redlemming]

I'm not a geologist, but it seems like it would be hard to predict what the damage would be.

To give an extreme example, what if the asteroid struck the Yellowstone super-volcano, causing it to blow?

Presumably there are other vulnerable points on the planet.

great movie about this

[cavebison]

There's a great movie about this, called "Seeking Friend for the End of the World". In the film, they only discover the asteroid is going to hit a few days before it happens.

The film was lovely (it's not an action flick, it's very thoughtful) but I thought the premise - discovering an imminent collision so late - was just a ridiculous plot device. Seems I was wrong! Great film now seems even a bit better. :) Highly recommended!