Risk Of Asteroid Smashing Into Earth Reduced (Apophis)

New Scientist ^ | 5-22-2006 | Kelly Young

[blam]

Catastrophism ping.

[headsonpikes]

Bush's fault.

[ConorMacNessa]

I'll sleep much better now, thank you!

[tet68]

The odds of an Earth impact by Apophis in 2036 have now been reduced from 1 in 5500 to 1 in 24,000,

Oh, I know that makes ME feel so much better.....

[John Jorsett]

That's a relief. Bruce Willis will be really old by 2036.

[Cyber Liberty]

We have to wait until 2013 to find out? The suspense is killing me.

[Kenny Bunkport]

We'll all be dead from West Nile Virus, Bird Flu, or global warming by then.

[RightWhale]

The odds of collision are the same. Nobody has done anything to change the odds. We are no safer than we were. Now, if we really want to change the odds we need to actually do something such as put some hardware out in space so we can change the momentum vector. But, doing anything these days seems to take Congress and several $ billion and a declaration of human rights violations and investigations of charges of bribery and racism.

[Cyber Liberty]

We'd probably push the wrong way and cause it to hit us.

[fhlh]

Rove! Get that "Asteroid Destroys Earth" machine fixed... STAT!

[Redcloak]

I thought that it was Anubis who chucked the asteroid at us; not Apophis.

[mtbopfuyn]

Whew, that brought the blood pressure down. Don't forget to ping us all again in 30 years.

[LibWhacker]

They found its speed was 6 millimetres per second different than what they had expected. "It's just a small correction in the orbit that propagates forward in time enough to reduce the probability of impact,"

Wow! If the doctor tells you the bullet missed your heart by 6 millimeters, d'ya feel lucky?

[RightWhale]

If you are a hard-core space navigator check this out: http://download.orbit.m6.net/mirror.html

There is no guarantee it won't crash your computer, but it is a space flight simulator, and freeware.

[Williams]

Many of these asteroids are never spotted until they have just missed us. A prominent astronomer (forget the name, the one a few comets are named after) said he is convinced that if we are hit, we won't see it coming until the asteroid has slipped into the atmosphere.

[cripplecreek]

They found its speed was 6 millimetres per second different than what they had expected.

Orbital physics IS an exact science.

[Cyber Liberty]

At least then we wouldn't have the time to listen to liberals complaining.

[RightWhale]

The problem is that the object has to move against the starry background to be noticed, and the one coming right at you won't. It will just get bigger. Radar might work, but the return signal would be lost in background noise until the object is very close.

[Cyber Liberty]

It's the measurement that worries me. What if the new measurement turns out to be 12 mm/sec off the other way?

Bam.

:^O