Posted on 09/07/2014 5:37:19 AM PDT by John W
On Sunday afternoon at 2:15 pm Eastern time, to be exact a small asteroid will whiz by the Earth.
Don't worry: it'll miss us by about 25,000 miles. To be clear, there is zero chance it can hit us. This is certain.
But in the long-term, worrying a little about asteroids isn't an unreasonable idea. Now, the odds of a massively destructive asteroid impact at any given time are tiny but the potential costs would be enormous. Yet we still haven't invested in all the infrastructure needed to spot small asteroids with much warning (we spotted this one less than a week ago). And we've done nothing to develop the ability to divert a larger one if it threatened us.
We'll be totally fine on Sunday in fact, the asteroid will be small and far enough away that you won't be able to see it without a telescope. But it'd be great if we can use this sort of near-miss to rouse us from our species-wide slumber, and make asteroid detection more of a priority.
(Excerpt) Read more at vox.com ...
Yeah. Only a 99.9999% probability.
But NOT a certainty.
99.99999% probability? Where are you getting your numbers? In a million years the chance is probably about .0000001%, a billion, probably .00001%, and so on.
The figures here show there is no reason to prepare for it. If it happens, it happens. I’m willing to wager it won’t.
You’re free to stick your head in the ground. Not exactly a smart response, but one you are entitled too.
I’m not going to worry about it, but not going to claim “ it won’t happen”.
It might...
If I didn’t believe we were created by God. I think I would believe it would happen (eventually). But likely not during our very short period on this Earth. At least, not big enough to cause an ELE. Maybe one will come around and smash a city, but I think that is all we MIGHT see.
A meteor can smash a city.
An asteroid WILL take out at least a county, country or continent.
And it WILL happen. Geologic and astronomical timing is very long. Or it could happen tomorrow.
god created the asteroids too. And designed a universe with laws we can understand. If we try.
Yes, that’s why the outer planets take meteor hits all the time.
So do we.
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