Posted on 05/02/2006 10:34:56 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A newly discovered asteroid is now the biggest thing known with a possibility of hitting the Earth in this century – and it is also the one that could hit the soonest.
But the odds of impact currently stand at just one in six million, reducing the fear factor somewhat, and these odds should further diminish with additional observations. This latest addition to NASA-JPL's list of potentially hazardous asteroids was discovered on 27 April 2006.
The asteroid, called 2006 HZ51, has an estimated diameter of about 800 metres and is the one of the largest objects ever to make the list. An object of that size would cause widespread devastation if it did strike the Earth.
HZ51 also has one of the shortest lead-times to a potential impact of any such object yet found, and the shortest of any potential Earth-impactor currently on the list. The earliest of its 165 possible impact dates is just over two years away, on 21 June 2008.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientistspace.com ...
Please put me on your list Thanks. :)
snoozers:
2006 HZ51
Earth Impact Risk Summary
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2006hz51.html
B612* Foundation
http://www.b612foundation.org/
Will do, email to follow.
"But the odds of impact currently stand at just one in six million,"
That is not comforting, someone sooner or later always wins the lotto with much higher odds.
Please add me to your ping list for this sort of topic.
NEW? When was it made? Who made it? This is huge... oh, they already said it was "Big"... The is series... Oh, they already named an asteroid that...
There i fixed the bias in the report.
LOL
"But the odds of impact currently stand at just one in six million, reducing the fear factor somewhat, and these odds should further diminish change with additional observations"....and substantial research support for my observations.!!!!
The headline almost sounds disappointing...almost... ; )
Yeah, quite agree.
From a Jeff Foxworthy skit..."Look how close it came to the highway".
:'D Further observation probably will further diminish the odds, and reduce the number of projected encounters. One of the factors in figuring the odds of impact is the number of encounters. Of course, something one half mile in diameter would make a great big (new) serious hole... and encounters with the Earth have small changes in the object's trajectory, changes which are less predictable than the orbit without the encounters. :'o
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