[poinq]

Two things. We are finding new asteroids with large orbits which we have not seen in hundreds of years. Some have shown up this year that we did not even know existed. And secondly, there is always the combination. An asteroid can hit another object and part of that combination can form new orbits and they could hit earth. We seem to be fine as long as everything keeps its orbit and hits nothing else. The reality is that space things are hitting other space things all the time. And you cannot mathematically calculate the orbit of the pieces. You just have to wait and see the outcome.

[romanesq]

“We seem to be fine as long as everything keeps its orbit and hits nothing else.”

Actually, with slight and typical deviation, Apophis could be a serious problem in 2029.

It can neither be discounted nor written off.

Wormwood?

[Az Joe]

That’s what I’ve been wondering about. These asteroids are pulled and pushed with the outer planets gravity.

It seems very likely they are going to clang and bounce off off each other and what happens after that can’t be predicted.

[COBOL2Java]

You just have to wait and see the outcome.

"see the outcome" being the operative phrase...

[WMarshal]

"Two things. We are finding new asteroids with large orbits which we have not seen in hundreds of years. Some have shown up this year that we did not even know existed. And secondly, there is always the combination. An asteroid can hit another object and part of that combination can form new orbits and they could hit earth. We seem to be fine as long as everything keeps its orbit and hits nothing else. The reality is that space things are hitting other space things all the time. And you cannot mathematically calculate the orbit of the pieces. You just have to wait and see the outcome."
_____________

I disagree. Artificial intelligence is now being used to find and map the orbits of astroids and comments as we speak, chugging through the massive amounts of data from past observations and new data from space space satellites.