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Mars Asteroid Impact More Likely Than Before

Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon Dec 31, 2007 11:03 AM
from the duck-and-cover dept.
Mars Space Science
sheldie writes "The probability of asteroid 2007 WD5 impacting Mars has been revised following further observations. The chance of impact has increased from 1.3% to 3.9%" This is a follow-up to earlier coverage of this asteroid from last week.
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[+] Chance for a Tunguska Sized Impact on Mars 184 comments
Multiple users have written to tell us of an LA Times report that an asteroid may hit Mars on January 30th. The asteroid is roughly 160 feet across, and JPL-based researchers say that it will have a 1-in-75 chance of striking Mars. Those odds are very high for this type of event, and scientists are hoping to witness an impact of a similar scope to the Tunguska disaster. From the LA Times: "Because scientists have never observed an asteroid impact -- the closest thing being the 1994 collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy with Jupiter -- such a collision on Mars would produce a 'scientific bonanza,' Chesley said."
Submission: 2007 WD5 impact probability increases to 3.9% by sheldie (154995)
[+] Mars Asteroid Impact Effectively Ruled Out 88 comments
An anonymous reader writes with a followup to previous news noting the possibility that an asteroid would collide with Mars: "Further observations have reduced the odds of asteroid 2007 WD5 impacting Mars to approximately 1 in 10,000. According to NASA this asteroid followed the same pattern of increasing in probability, then finally being ruled out as a threat."
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  • Wow (Score:4, Funny)

    by snowraver1 (1052510) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:08AM (#21866350)
    That would truly be an amazing event. The science that could be learned in the event of a collision would be massive! I, for one, welcome our planet smashing overlord!

    • Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 31 2007, @12:07PM (#21867066)
      I've experiments to be run. There is research to be done. On the planets who are still alive...
    • Wow, the slashdot crowd gets younger every year (and I'm so old I was a beta tester for dirt. We never did get all the bugs out).

      Does nobody remember Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 [wikipedia.org] hitting Jupiter in 1994? Hell I even remember that and there was a catastrophe in my home town [wikipedia.org]... oh wait, no that was 1993. The comet hitting Jupiter was a year later.

      But at any rate, we had a extinction-causing (if it would have happened on Earth) impact in less than the last fifteen years!

      How many collisions do you guys need, anyway?

      • Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)

        by snowraver1 (1052510) on Monday December 31 2007, @03:55PM (#21869696)
        It would cause alot of dust and dirt to become airborne, allowing spectral analysis to determine the presence of substances. The argument about water existing on the planet would likely be answered, and we could get a good look on what resources might be available on mars if humans were ever able to establish a base camp.

  • Preview of news media coverage (Score:5, Funny)

    by bwintx (813768) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:09AM (#21866356)
    "BREAKING NEWS! [SFX: Ridiculously melodramatic sounder]

    "NASA now says an asteroid impact on Mars is now three times more likely than previously thought.

    "At this rate, the impact's likelihood will exceed 150% in just a few days."

    • Re:Preview of news media coverage (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Smidge204 (605297) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:15AM (#21866442)
      To be fair, a "1 in 24" is much better odds than "1 in 76." So yes, It is three times more likely and yes, that is a pretty big deal.

      A fresh impact crater would reveal all sorts of valuable, once-in-a-lifetime data about the planet that is likely to be the first humans will tred on since Earth. Don't underestimate the science.
      =Smidge=

        • Re:Preview of news media coverage (Score:5, Informative)

          by Smidge204 (605297) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:47AM (#21866846)
          What "science" do you have in mind? Mars has already a bazillion craters to look at

          But no FRESH ones. All the craters are millions of years old and have been weathered and contaminated. A fresh divot would expose deeper soils and rocks that have not previously been exposed to the atmosphere.

          Also, there are things to learn about the mechanics of larger impacts on Earth-like planets. Since comparisons have been drawn between this and the Tunguska explosion, perhaps studying this will help prove or disprove that theory.
          =Smidge=

          • Re:Preview of news media coverage (Score:5, Interesting)

            by JetJaguar (1539) on Monday December 31 2007, @12:43PM (#21867550)

            But no FRESH ones.

            That's not really true. The orbital cameras around Mars have detected new craters from impacts that occurred in just the last few years. Here's just one example. [nasa.gov]

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by MichaelSmith (789609)
              Not sure if it is the same crater but I did see a picture of a new Mars crater which was just a smudge in the sand. The impactor had fallen apart before impact and just spread some darker dust around. I think it would be very interesting to see how much of this object actually hits the ground, and how much mass gets thrown into the atmosphere.

              Maybe I am counting on this too much. 4% is not that high. Cross fingers. Touch chipboard.

  • Do your duty, people (Score:5, Funny)

    by plover (150551) * on Monday December 31 2007, @11:09AM (#21866360) Homepage Journal
    C'mon, people, it's our duty as annoying geeks to raise paranoia amongst our friends and family.

    Tell them that if the asteroid just barely misses Mars that its gravitational pull could actually slingshot the rock straight towards earth! You just don't have to tell them what the chances of that are (astronomical would be an accurate value.)

    Lets see how many people who failed math we can get to go hide in caves till it passes. :-)

  • That first picture... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dattaway (3088) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:10AM (#21866380) Homepage
    See that first picture where the arc of the asteroid makes a flyby right into our orbit, while just passing Mars?

  • Versus Jupiter (Score:4, Interesting)

    by us7892 (655683) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:12AM (#21866398) Homepage

    How come the experts cannot mathematically say for certain whether this rock will hit Mars? What's the wildcard in this calculation that injects uncertainty?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      They're waiting to see whether or not John McEnroe will volley it back. If he whiffs it we'll still be in for one helluva show, so it's win/win as far as I'm concerned.

    • Re:Versus Jupiter (Score:5, Informative)

      by plover (150551) * on Monday December 31 2007, @11:19AM (#21866498) Homepage Journal
      Measurement inaccuracies in the observations of its current trajectory. It's not like we can hold a tape measure up to it and figure out its precise position, or put it on a scale to check its mass.

      The more it moves, however, the higher the precision of the measurements can be. So as time progresses, the astronomers will be able to reduce the circle of uncertainty.

      • The more it moves, however, the higher the precision of the measurements can be. So as time progresses, the astronomers will be able to reduce the circle of uncertainty.

        "The data's in. Let's see, it's going to miss Mars, and on Dec. 31 hit the 3rd pla[NO CARRIER]
           

      • Re:Versus Jupiter (Score:5, Informative)

        by Markrian (931172) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:57AM (#21866946)
        Actually, since the asteroid's mass is negligible to that of the planets, its mass is irrelevant to its trajectory as it can be considered a test particle. We only need to know six pieces of information - three spatial coordinates, and three velocity components. It's easy to measure four of these very accurately, but the radial distance and velocity of the asteroid with respect to us are harder. These are where the majority of the uncertainty comes from.
      • A sig I saw here a few days ago fits that comment (im)perfectly: "I have measured my velcity with such exquisit perfection that I have no idea where I am".

        Ok, so that applies to particles and not astronomy. Fuck up a perfectly good joke...

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Accuracy of measurements, mainly.

      Also, regarding Jupiter and Shoemaker-Levy 9: Jupiter is a much larger target with a much larger gravitational field. In fact, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was actually orbiting Jupiter (not the Sun), and it was easy enough to see that its orbit was decaying. That fact alone means a collision was near certain.

    • Re:Versus Jupiter (Score:5, Insightful)

      by blhack (921171) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:27AM (#21866592)
      yes, there is. It is called the:

      "not knowing the exact position, velocity, and mass of the object due to inadequate funding that has been, instead, spent on countless "beautification" projects around major cities uncertainty principal"

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by sm62704 (957197)
        Yeah, blame OUR government! Like there aren't any other governments, or like Europe doesn't have a space agency, or China, or Russia. Or like ours is the ONLY inefficient government.

        I mean, my government (with the best legislators money can buy) really sucks, but it's not like any of the others do such a great job, either. Maybe ours sucks worst but they all suck.
    • What's the wildcard in this calculation that injects uncertainty?

      It's small size. It's diameter is only 30m.

        • Re:Versus Jupiter (Score:4, Funny)

          by AgentPaper (968688) * on Monday December 31 2007, @03:29PM (#21869466)
          Wrong unit of measure - the school bus is the accepted unit for items longer than a Beetle but smaller than a football field. 1/3 field = 1 bus = 3 Beetles. Alternately, 30 meters equals about 60% of the height of the Library of Congress' dome.

          Figures aren't available on how many light bulbs it will power, though.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Jeff DeMaagd (2015)
      From the tone in the question, I would guess that you've never taken a proper science class.

      The basic point with scientific measurement is that you can take measurements, but you need to have realistic expectations as to the accuracy of those measurements and retain the error bounds throughout the calculations. For example, 1cm read from an ordinary ruler shouldn't be taken as 1.00000000000000 cm. It should be taken as something like 1cm plus or minus 0.05 cm. That's a possible error bound of plus or min

      • Re:Versus Jupiter (Score:4, Insightful)

        by samkass (174571) on Monday December 31 2007, @12:22PM (#21867266) Homepage Journal
        I think it's worth noting that if it's this hard to predict whether a rock is going to hit a planet when there's confidence in the computational model but uncertainty in the observations, then it's absurd to talk about the climate in 2030-2100 when we have neither certainty that our models are accurate nor do we have very good data.

        I disagree that that's worth noting. There is absolutely no doubt that the distance between this asteroid and Mars is going to continue to decline for awhile. That type of qualitative statement is much closer to making climate predictions. The analogy of whether it will hit is closer to making weather predictions for 2 decades out, which I agree is absurd.

      • Re:Versus Jupiter (Score:4, Funny)

        by slashname3 (739398) on Monday December 31 2007, @12:25PM (#21867298)
        And you don't even mention Mars' version of Bruce Willis taking off in a flying saucer with a team of wild cat water drillers to plant nuclear weapons in the asteroid in an attempt to divert it from a direct strike on Mars. They have to factor in the possibility of that happening too.
  • It's a space station!
  • ... and... there. We need to put 3 x as much armor on the new rover. Done. Next?

  • Oh god! We're all gonna die!

    Wait, what?
    Oh. Never mind.

  • Look at it this way... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ToSeek (529348) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:22AM (#21866532)
    As the Bad Astronomer notes [badastronomy.com], the odds of nothing happening have shrunk from 99% to 96%.

  • Increasing probability (Score:5, Informative)

    by Will_Malverson (105796) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:23AM (#21866558) Journal
    Remember how these things work - they made a few observations, from which they made a cone through which they're 95% (or whatever) sure that the asteroid will pass. Mars filled up about 1.3% of that cone, and so they can say that there's a 1.3% chance that Mars will be hit by the asteroid.

    A few days later, with better observations, the cone shrinks, and now Mars takes up 3.9% of the cone. As the cone shrinks, Mars will continue to consume a larger and larger portion of it, right up until the time (maybe) that the cone shrinks outside of Mars and they determine that there will be no impact.

    So remember, this is not unusual, and *every* non-impact event follows this pattern: Scientists find potential impact. Impact probability increases. Impact probability increases. (maybe a few more repetitions, too) Suddenly, they decide that it's not going to hit, and impact probability goes to zero.

  • Is that asteroid (Score:5, Funny)

    by WormholeFiend (674934) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:27AM (#21866586)
    from Klendathu? /Service guarantees citizenship //Would you like to know more?
  • That is (roughly) the size of the current transverse error ellipse at the closest approach to Mars, so statistically the Asteroid should pass at least that close to Mars.

    (Mars's volumetric radius is 3389.5 km, and 3.9 % probability of impact roughly means that the error ellipse is 1 / 0.039 ~ 25 times the projected area of Mars at the time of closet approach. This ignores gravitational focusing, but this is not too important for Mars.)

    So, based on the current error ellipse, not only could it hit Mars, it co
  • Does Hot Fudge Sundae falls on a Tuesdae that week?

  • Impact results (Score:4, Informative)

    by lpangelrob (714473) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:40AM (#21866760)
    No one's brought up the consequences of a collision yet, so here it is, from the first press release [nasa.gov]:

    If the asteroid is indeed on a collision course, it would hit Mars with a velocity of about 13.5 km/s (8.4 miles per second), and would produce an explosion equivalent to about 3 MT of TNT. We can only speculate as to the effects of such an impact, but it would be reasonable to expect a crater nearly a kilometer across and a significant amount of dust lifted into the atmosphere.
    It also notes the asteroid is 160 ft / 50 m across, and any impact probably will not be observed (by human eyes, anyways) because it will impact Mars where there are no instruments.

  • Large Object Also Heading For Earth (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ed Almos (584864) on Monday December 31 2007, @11:47AM (#21866844)
    2007 TU24 - approaching
    Approximate diameter: 319 meters (H=20.131)
    Closest Earth approach: 1.44 LD at 0826 UTC on 29 Jan. -----
    Inside ten LD of Earth: 24 Jan. until 3 Feb.
    Inside Earth's Hill sphere: 27 to 31 Jan.
    Closest Moon approach: 2.20 LD at 1533 UTC 29 Jan.
    Data based on: JPL SSD orbit solution #13 downloaded 6 Dec.
    based on 87 observations spanning 54 days
    Optical observation: observed from 13 locations during 53.8661 days
    discovered at 0626 UTC on 11 Oct. by the Catalina Sky Survey
    last observed at 0313 UTC on 4 Dec. by the Spacewatch 1.8m telescope

    This shows that a rock 319m in diameter will pass by the Earth on January 29th 2008, it's closest point will be about 1.4 times the moons orbit or about 357,000 miles. This is VERY VERY close.

    Regards

    Ed Almos

  • Good thing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bytesex (112972) on Monday December 31 2007, @12:00PM (#21866998) Homepage
    Well then, it's a good thing we're not living there yet, isn't it ?

  • The rovers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ACS Solver (1068112) on Monday December 31 2007, @12:21PM (#21867252)
    Is there any information yet on whether Spirit and Opportunity might see anything if there actually is impact - such as maybe seeing the dust rise or even capturing a glimpse of the asteroid in the Martian atmosphere?

  • But what about... (Score:5, Funny)

    by martyb (196687) on Monday December 31 2007, @01:11PM (#21867916)

    "The probability of asteroid 2007 WD5 impacting Mars has been revised [CC] following further observations. The chance of impact has increased from 1.3% to 3.9%"

    But what about 2007 WD40 [wikipedia.org]? My bet is that one WILL slip past us! <grin>

  • What terrifies me about the potential impact (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chris Tucker (302549) on Monday December 31 2007, @01:12PM (#21867922) Homepage
    is the tons of utter bullshit that Richard Hoagland will then spew about all the fantastic discoveries revealed by the impact, proving that there was an advanced civilization on Mars, that NASA is suppressing.

    Dear Jeebus, please let the asteroid hit the "Face On Mars" dead center, just to piss off that con artist Hoagland.

    Thanks!

  • i know what will happen. (Score:4, Funny)

    by xENoLocO (773565) on Monday December 31 2007, @01:27PM (#21868120) Homepage
    The asteroid will bust through the surface crust, exposting Mars' nougatty, caramel-filled center.

    Yummy.

  • Odds of astroid impact (Score:3, Funny)

    by WalletBoy (555942) on Monday December 31 2007, @02:23PM (#21868788)
    "Never tell me the odds!"
    • So many things wrong there...

      I'm going to just assume it was a bad attempt at funny moderation, not a serious post.

    • Murphy's Law Re:Taking All Bets (Score:5, Funny)

      by Alien54 (180860) on Monday December 31 2007, @03:29PM (#21869476) Journal
      Actually, Murphy's law says that not only will the asteroid miss Mars, it says that the asteroid miss will be precisely enough to whip the rock around to a new orbit. One precisely timed and angled to aim it towards Earth where it will impact on some particularly inconvenient location. Like the 2008 Olympics, the city of Jerusalem, or something else of political import.

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