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Space Media Science

Astronomers Upset About Asteroid Panic 314

Posted by simoniker from the construct-identical-trashteroid dept.
DrMorpheus writes "According to the New Scientist, astronomers are horrified by press scares over asteroids - including the recent furore over QQ47 - which briefly had a one-in-a-million chance of crashing into our planet in 2014. So much so that they are toning down the scale they use to rate the threat posed by asteroids in an attempt to discourage journalists from covering potential collisions. Some even want the way asteroids are assessed to be completely overhauled."
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Astronomers Upset About Asteroid Panic More

Astronomers Upset About Asteroid Panic

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  • I know people get hysterical easily, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by VValdo ( 10446 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:48PM (#6989837)
    Even as the commotion over QQ47 was dying down

    Umm... what commotion exactly? I know it got some coverage on a slow news day, but seriously, was anyone actually worried about this?

    W

  • It's their own fault. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dr Caleb ( 121505 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:49PM (#6989841) Homepage Journal
    If they'd quit telling us about them, we wouldn't panic. Worked for the Roswell crash...:)

  • Spoiler... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Not_Wiggins ( 686627 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:50PM (#6989846) Journal
    At some point in the future, Earth will get hit by a global-killer! That's statistically probable, too! (given infinite time... well, ok... maybe we don't have INFINITE time, but... close enough for government work).

    Oops! Shouldn't have posted this... now the National Inquirer will have fodder to run with this overly-used story for another 10 years. ;)

    I'll start worrying about the accuracy of asteroid collision prediction after they manage to figure out how to predict rain 3 days from now with better than 70% accuracy. 8/

    • Re:Spoiler... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sique ( 173459 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:28PM (#6990108) Homepage
      I'll start worrying about the accuracy of asteroid collision prediction after they manage to figure out how to predict rain 3 days from now with better than 70% accuracy.

      On the other hand we are able to predict the position of a lot of stellar objects far into the future with a quite astonishing precision. And people were able to do so already 3000 years ago, for instance in a region that is now called Iraq.

      If an astronomer tells me, that the collision of a specified object with Earth within the next 50 years has a probability of X, I believe him more than a meterologist who tells me, that it will rain with the probability of X in the next 5 hours.

      • Weather forecasts (Score:5, Interesting)

        by LMariachi ( 86077 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @07:47PM (#6990574) Journal
        "Chance of rain" in a weather forecast actually means "probability that you personally will get rained on," not "probability that it will rain somewhere in the area in question." Watch a time-lapse radar animation -- if those blobs travel across x% of the area, that's considered an x% chance of rain, even though the actual probability that rain will occur is 100%. (And of course weather patterns are vastly more complicated than simple celestial mechanics.)

  • Any attention is good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) * on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:50PM (#6989848) Journal
    The hype and panic brings needed attention to an often overlooked scientific field: watching out for big ass shit that could annihilate us. We spend far too little on this kind of work as it is.

  • notifications? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by micronix1 ( 590179 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:50PM (#6989853)
    do we really need to be notified every time an asteroid is within a percentage of a collision course? the media should focus on the more interesting statistics of astronomy.. like.. uh.. mars!
    • Mars is a lot less likely to smack into us than some random asterioid... I think. Of course - Mars gets smacked around by asteroids all the time; that happens when you stick a planet in an asteroid belt. If you really want interesting, check out neutron stars, degenerate matter, black holes, quasars, and other crazy stuff. Black holes may get TOO much coverage, however.

    • Re:notifications? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jimson ( 516491 )
      The question is, do you really think we'll be notified if there is an asteroid that has a 99% chance of earth collision? I think not......

    • Re:notifications? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by thogard ( 43403 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:17PM (#6990032) Homepage
      Until we have some way to cope with a real threat, it should be beaten into the general public that big stuff falls out of the sky and does very bad things to most of the living creatures on earth.

      America has great infastructure thanks to scaremongering of the cold war. There are parallel pipelines through most of the country, there are very good roads in places that could never justify the cost of an Interstate highway. The highways are there only because of the threat of the evil commies back years ago and the pipelines are a result of parinoia of Japanese spys from WW2. If the congress gets confused enough about the issue there might be some money to fund it but right now I'm guessing over 75% of congress thinks that "God will not let this happen to us".
    • Keep notifing us. Please loudly exclaim when we have a 1 in a million chance of being hit. Perferably like "it is 80 times more likly that you will be hit by this astroid then winning the lottery".

      Now, once the public starts demanding proper funding for watching out for these things, and determining what to do, then they can quite down.

    • " the media should focus on the more interesting statistics of astronomy.. like.. uh.. "

      Kobe Bryant? The California recall? Criticism of the President for not finding the weapons that the bad guys really really really really doesn't want us to find?

  • Reporters: The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mr. Flibble ( 12943 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:50PM (#6989860) Homepage
    Reporters: The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling!

    Scientists: STFU!

    Reporters: Aw, damn.

  • Torino scale's OK; media are the problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AEton ( 654737 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:51PM (#6989861)

    Having a 1 on the Torino scale [nasa.gov] is kind of like having a Blue on the Terrorism Threat Scale, or a DEFCON 4 instead of 5. It's kind of cute but it's not very meaningful.

    Changing the scale won't change the sensationalist, advertising-powered press at all. They'll continue to report asteroids as "harbinger of the approaching eschaton" whether it's on the Torino or Donuto scale (instead of covering, say, the deleterious effects of gasoline consumption by SUV's on the environment, or the tobacco industry's clever solicitation of candidates for DEATH).

  • poll (Score:5, Funny)

    by j0hndoe ( 677869 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:52PM (#6989867) Journal
    Asteroid? Not worried. Vaguely worried. Sorta worried. Kinda worried. Somewhat worried. Fairly worried. Worried. FEAR FEAR FEAR

    • Re:poll (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:01PM (#6989928)
      You forgot an option:
      "I LIVE on an asteroid, you insensitive clod!"

  • We should get rid of the torino scale regardless (Score:4, Interesting)

    by oskillator ( 670034 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:52PM (#6989869)
    The Torino scale is trying to represent two completely orthogonal scalars (chance of collision and consequences of collision) with a single scalar. It's going to end up misrepresenting something.
    • orthogonal scalars

      Would you mind clarifying how that works?

      • >> orthogonal scalars
        >
        > Would you mind clarifying how that works?

        When mathematics hits language... no good outcome. I suppose the original poster meant that the Torino-scale combines two completely unrelated scales with each other.

        The probability of an impact has nothing to with its potential (desastrous) effects.

        Two orthogonal vectors are linear independent from each other, that is, one isn't a multiple of the other.

        If you'd measure impact-probabilty on the x-axis, and the effects on the y

    • Re:We should get rid of the torino scale regardles (Score:5, Informative)

      by Vihai ( 668734 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:05PM (#6989958) Homepage

      Multiply probability of impact by consequences of collision and you get a meaningful weighed probability of disaster.

      Low probability * Low damage = Low danger
      High probability * Low damage = Medium Danger
      Low probability * High damage = Medium Danger
      High probability * High damage = High Danger

      Seems reasonable to me
      • RFCs to the rescue.

        The BSD syslog Protocol [ietf.org] already has a scale that can be adapated with a little tweaking. And then we can have notification relayed to a plethora of Syslog consoles that can take appropriate action (backup, shutdown, pager, send T101 back in time to stop it, etc). So we have:


        0 Emergency: system is unusable
        1 Alert: action must be taken immediately
        2 Critical: Critical conditions
        3 Error: Error conditions
        4 Warning: Warning conditions
        5 Notice: normal but significant condition
        6 Informational: Informational messages
        7 Debug: debug-level messages
        which with a little tweaking becomes

        0 Emergency: planet is unusable
        1 Alert: action must be taken immediately
        2 Critical: Critical conditions
        3 Danger: Danger Will Robison!
        4 Warning: This is too close
        5 Notice: This one is a bit close
        6 Informational: Here's the orbit
        7 Debug: Still figuring out the orbit

        The only downside I see is that it is the BSD syslog protocol, and I understand that BSD is dead...

    • Re:We should get rid of the torino scale regardles (Score:4, Informative)

      by Idarubicin ( 579475 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @07:22PM (#6990460) Journal
      It's really not that hard. You plot on a logarithmic scale the probability of collision (x-axis) and the estimated kinetic energy of the object (y-axis). From this figure [nasa.gov], read off the Torino scale [nasa.gov] value.

      I don't think it misrepresents anything. Each value is associated with both a specific kinetic energy and a specific probability. The Torino value not just the result of multiplying the two numbers (which would introduce the orthogonal vectors issue you mentioned) but rather a unique area on the plane defined by those two 'vectors'.

  • COVERUP!!!!!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by exhilaration ( 587191 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:52PM (#6989870)
    RIIIIGHT, and aliens AREN'T trying to steal my toughts!! These "astronomers" are obviously part of a vast alien conspiracy to take over the Earth using meteors!

    Don't believe them!! They're trying to... hey, get out of my room!, AARRRRGHHGHH.....

    [NO CARRIER]

  • Panic can be good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:53PM (#6989879)
    What will it take before we get more money for watching the skies and funding for technologies that can divert a disaster? I think inciting panic or fear without exagerating the risks or facts can have a positive social change.

    Right now, most of the sky is ignored and there is no solution to moving a huge asteroid just a little bit to avoid collision with the Earth or the moon. If Joe Sixpack demanded some kind of plan eventually something would be debated in Congress. The alternative is to watch a small part of the sky and do nothing if a real threat is detected.
    • Ahh, here are my thoughts, to attach my words to. We need an asteroid defense plan. We have nothing now, and we certainly could miss detecting an incoming object large enough to kill us all. If we did, we would miss our lives... for just long enough to die :P

      Anything that keeps you in the news is good, because any publicity that doesn't get you shut down is good. Maybe they could get some corporate sponsors.

    • Bombs, not 'scopes (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:06PM (#6989962) Homepage
      What will it take before we get more money for watching the skies and funding for technologies that can divert a disaster?

      Watching the skies for asteroids is comparatively inexpensive. The distances that telescopes are required to resolve in order to detect a threatening asteroid within sufficient lead time are far shorter than those routinely resolved by Hubble or Chandra, and lower-power telescopes = lower cost. It's the research into asteroid diversion techniques that really must be beefed up. I can almost understand the bureaucracy's reluctant attitude toward funding such projects -- why, they reason, should they pump money into research for circumstances that in all likelihood will never occur?

      Nevertheless, the price for such an event, one asteroid at the expense of the human race, is far too high. This presents its own kind of pragmatism, which mustn't be ignored by those with the power to decide.

      • Re:Bombs, not 'scopes (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Idarubicin ( 579475 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @07:29PM (#6990492) Journal
        Watching the skies for asteroids is comparatively inexpensive. The distances that telescopes are required to resolve in order to detect a threatening asteroid within sufficient lead time are far shorter than those routinely resolved by Hubble or Chandra, and lower-power telescopes = lower cost. It's the research into asteroid diversion techniques that really must be beefed up.

        It's not an either-or question. The further away an asteroid can be detected, the less effort would be required to divert it. Hypothetically speaking, if one could accurately predict collisions a thousand years in advance, only very small tweaks to trajectory would be necessary. Build a 'paint bomb' that would make one face of the asteroid highly reflective, so that its momentum is changed by sunlight bouncing off. Contrariwise, asteroids observed only a month in advance by some guy with binoculars will call for none other than...ahem...Bruce Willis.

    • Fear of harmful things is one the reasons people survive. Being afraid of tigers is a good thing. Unnecessary fear is rarely a good thing (I say "rarely" because as soon as I say "never" ten thousand people will post remote examples to prove me wrong). And panic more often then not does more damage than good. Panic and fear make you do stupid things. They make you think emotionally, not rationally. Causing unnecessary fear will hurt things far more than the money you get from it will help.
    • If Joe Sixpack demanded some kind of plan eventually something would be debated in Congress.

      They should make a movie. "Mr. Sixpack goes to Washington."

      Panic and fear = emotions, which are a poor way to evaluate risks. We might go nuts worrying about NEO and devote a gazillion dollars to it, and then Yellowstone Park might blow up, taking half the US with it - or perhaps something a little more mundane and realistic could be overlooked, resulting in much death and destruction.

      I do agree more money shou

    • Re:Panic can be good (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Cyno ( 85911 )
      What will it take before we get more money...

      Everyone keeps complaining, "We need more money", "more money", "more money", "more money". What will it take for people to realize we can't have the resources, environment and honesty everyone needs until we do away with money and the waste, excuses and corruption that are associated with it?

      Answer: A new type of media.

      I think we can all agree that asteroids pose a potential threat to our way of life, yet we're unwilling to admit it in a social context.
    • Fear of nothing causes people to lose interest.

      On the 5th near miss where nothing happens, the 6th won't be news worthy. Remember chicken little who cried that the sky was falling? Or the boy who cried wolf?

      And you're not serious in believing that congress is going to come up with a solution do you? So congress will debate and then they will bring some of these scientists who don't have enough money to really do good research in front of them, he will say something to the effect that if an asteroid

  • What gets me is that people actually panic even when they put the statistics right there in the page, 1 in a million chance. There is greater chance that we would nuke ourselves out of existance. Or yet maybe I could win the lottery, think ill go buy a ticket.
  • Please stop paying attention to us! We don't need funding or publicity! Give our money to the effort to stamp out terrorist bad breath!

    This sounds suspisciously like an Onion article in the making...

    • Exactly my view; they can't have it both ways. On the one hand they want more funding to be able to deploy the necessary personnel and hardware to detect these things in time to try and do something about it. On the other hand they don't want press sensationalism to get out of hand, which I don't really think it is, but that's just my opinion.

      The gotcha is without mainstream media coverage and public opinion there is no way they are going to get additional funding. I think that the occasional bit of ove

  • I guess it makes sense (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RealAlaskan ( 576404 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:54PM (#6989888) Homepage Journal
    Remember the story about the boy who cried wolf [storyarts.org]? It would be pretty funny if someday the astronomers found a big asteroid that really was going to wipe out all of us, and everyone said: ``Right. Just like the last 42 asteroids you said would wipe us out.''

    Well, it would be funny if I had someway to get to another earth-like planet ...

    Of course, with essentially no space program, there's nothing we could do even if we DID believe them, so maybe they're worrying over nothing.

    • 1. We could send Bruce Willis up to blow the thing up with an A bomb

      2. We could send the 2 years in secret preperations building a new civilization underground that can live for 1000 years, then pick the people who get to live at random .... Or don't you trust the summer blockbusters of 1998 to save us from disaster???

  • Bruce Willis (Score:3, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:55PM (#6989893)
    It's not only the astronomers who are worried about one of these things coming, it's Bruce Willis who is worried, too.

    He's afraid he's going to have to wear that hideous cordoroy space-suit again and listen to Ben Affleck mope about J.Lo.
    • He's afraid he's going to have to wear that hideous cordoroy space-suit again and listen to Ben Affleck mope about J.Lo.

      I don't like the sound of them apples.

  • On space.com too (Score:5, Informative)

    by snake_dad ( 311844 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:55PM (#6989896) Homepage Journal
    Space.com had a nice piece [space.com] about this too.

  • Why Worry? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pro_Piracy_Guy ( 699942 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:55PM (#6989898)
    The dinosaurs didn't even bother looking for large objects that might one day impact the planet, and they seemed to do ok.

    Oh wait, they are all dead, I forgot.

  • Where is my green/blue/yellow/orange/red?

    Perhaps we should always be in an elevated state for possible impact too!

  • This is just plain silly... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Traxman ( 444480 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:56PM (#6989902)
    I understand that the scientists should be concerned that their data not be misrepresented, but the blame for any panic that ensues following one of these press releases lies on the media that reports it, not the scientists.

    As long as the information the Astonomers release is accurate and fully explains the likelyhood of an impact, I think they're covered. There is enough of a peer review process involved that keeps inaccurate information from being disseminated. And the scale they use to rate the impact probability seems quite satisfactory to me. (granted, I'm no astronomer)

    Maybe I'm assuming too much, but media hype doesn't usually make it past my BS filter. Until I hear a report from a multiple reliable media sources, I'm unlikely to believe in wild claims of global destruction. But that's just me.

    Traxman
  • Brian Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, worries that the public will stop taking the asteroid threat seriously if false alarms continue.

    Seriously though, did they ever? When was the last time you saw someone look at a headline about a potential asteroid collision, and witnessed a reaction other than a chuckle, or a sarcastic remark about life insurance?

    The public knows there's virtually no chance of such an event actually happening, though I'm sure t

  • I'm less concerned about the Torino Scale. . . . (Score:3, Interesting)

    by astrobabe ( 533099 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:02PM (#6989937) Homepage
    than the people who declare we're all going to die after only a nights worth of orbit data (And yes I am an astronomer dammit!). There are too many people trying to do sloppy science by deriving an orbit after only a night's worth of data and then send out a press release (*cough* University of Pisa *cough*)

    It makes us look bad that they declare we're all going to die and then later late week after they've gotten more data and re-crunch the numbers have to come back and say "Ohh, yeah, please ignore what we just said"

  • Heh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by evil-osm ( 203438 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:02PM (#6989939)
    This really isn't anything new. The amount of sensationalism that is poured through journalism now is gotten silly. It has really become a form of entertainment, rather than a reliable source of information. Its really too bad that you have to take the news with a grain of salt generally, since everything is jumping to conclusions, rather than giving you the facts and leaving out the opinions.
  • I don't care if they think an astroid is going to hit us I want to know where an astroid that is going to hit us will impact. That way, I can run up my credit cards and travel to that spot, set up a lawn chair and enjoy the show (an laugh at those on the other side of the world who will eventually starve or freeze in the ensueing nuclear winter).
  • Michael Moore seems to have hit it on the head about the U.S. news organizations jumping from remote possibility to remote possibility getting everybody as scared shitless as they can. film at 11.
    • That's not exactly a Sherlock Holms-level observation there.

      The trouble is that the News has stopped being about the News and has instead become about pandering to the lowest common denominator's interests (there are an awful lot of stupid people out there, and they just happen to be the ones most impacted by advertising).

      It's like Bill Murray's character in Scrooged pointed out: "[People wanting to see the program] isn't good enough! They have got to be *so* *scared* to miss it!"

      Watch any news progra

  • Need better math teachers? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:08PM (#6989974)
    Obviously, the people that panic because of a one-in-a-million chance of an asteroid hitting the earth are the same ones that buy lottery tickets because of a one-in-sixty-million chance of winning the lottery. Apparently a large segment of the population suffers from a Rainman-like inability to comprehend either large numbers or statistics. Perhaps we SHOULD be careful what we tell these people. It's like when I was babysitting the 7-year old next store, and causually mentioned that because rivers meander, some day the river slough a half mile from his house would be where his house his. He started screaming and crying -- he couldn't comprehend the fact that "some day" would be long after he was dead and his house had been torn down anyway.
    • A professor told me that he once mentioned to his class that something or other didn't matter in the long run, because in a few billion years the sun was going to go nova and devour the Earth.

      A girl in the front row began sobbing hysterically.

      "What's wrong?" asked the professor. "It's in like four billion years!"

      The girl stopped crying, relieved, and brightened. "Oh! I thought you said four *million* years!"
  • Keeping an potential asteroid hit a secret may be better for everyone, but it's not better for me.

    M@

  • Overhauling stuff (Score:3, Interesting)

    by taustin ( 171655 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:08PM (#6989977) Homepage Journal
    Some even want the way asteroids are assessed to be completely overhauled."

    What needs to be overhauled is how the astronomers interact with the press. Perhaps they should simply not hold press conferences on "maybes". Especially when certainty will be available within a few days anyway.

    The problem isn't the system, the problem is the people. Glory hungry amateurs and stupid journalists, feeding off of each other.

    To hell with 'em all.

  • Top 10 Sensational News Reports about Asteroid (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:09PM (#6989981)
    10. Fox News: "TERROR FROM ABOVE!"

    9. CNN: "We now go to our Washington bureau for the latest on the Bush administration's responsibility for this catastrophy.

    8. PBS: "If you send us $100, you'll get this nice Yanni videotape."

    7. MSNBC: "In Scarborough country, asteroids are held accountable"

    6. C-Span: "Tonight on Book Chat, the author of the "Meteor" tie-in novel weighs in."

    5. CBS News with Dan Rather: "This meteor will sweep through the South like a tornado through a trailer park" [dol.net]

    4. The View: "What do you think we should wear for this?"

    3. Good Morning America: "Is your pet psychic? These and more stories after the asteroid report."

    2. MTV News: "With this new asteroid in the sky, Meat Loaf has a few words to say about the fact that he is no longer the biggest `Rock Star' around"

    1. James Carville on Crossfire: "Ken Starr is bringing this upon us! This asteroid will kill minorities and poor children!"

    0. Springfield News: "This is Kent Brockman. I for one, welcome our...."
  • the fact they immediatley start yelling "we're all going to die!" and then report the probability as being astronomically low. If an asterod pops up with a 1 in 2 chance of hitting us, then panic. But when you have a greater liklihood of being kicked in the ass by a midget than you do of getting hit, don't tell us.

  • Worried about asteroids? I got a solution: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:10PM (#6989985) Homepage
    I think it's important to realize that eventually we *will* get pegged pretty seriously by an asteroid. The scares are one thing, but eventually the numbers are gonna catch up with us.

    It's depressing to think that we continue to keep all of mankind's eggs in one basket when we don't have to. Zubrin says $20 billion and 10 years to get to Mars and $2B a launch after that -- that's 70+ Mars missions just for what we're spending for W's war in Iraq, which I suspect would do a lot towards addressing the idea of permanent colonization.

    Get some puny dictator who poses no threat to the US or do something so great that it'd be remembered forever so long as humans draw breath...

  • Look at the bright side! (Score:3, Funny)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:10PM (#6989987)
    Convincing the blond next door that an asteroid is about to hit the earth may be the only chance most slashdotters have of getting laid...

  • Let em live in fear (Score:3)

    by Teahouse ( 267087 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:10PM (#6989988)
    I say we let the press make the articles MORE sensational. Quite frankly, if some Enquirer or World Weekly News reader is incapable of grasping the odds when they are posted right in the article, let them riot. Perhaps a few of them will die in the ensuing chaos and keep Darwin happy. Our gene pool is becoming clogged at the filter.

  • Asteroids bah. (Score:4, Funny)

    by twoslice ( 457793 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:11PM (#6989993)
    All we have to do is put a little white triangle in space that we can control on the ground using a conputer. We can then just spin it around and around and fire little white dots of light to blast the asteroids into smaller and smaller pieces...

  • Wait. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:11PM (#6989999) Homepage
    The media craziness would be solved if people just applied a simple rule: Don't assign a Torino rating to an object until you have observations covering 1% of the time between now and the first potential collision.

    All these level 1 rated objects have been reclassified as level 0 as soon as a couple weeks of data have been obtained; why not wait those couple weeks before publising anything?
  • Hey if they want a less drastic scale, they could use the Gran Torino scale. a "1" on the Gran Torino scale is the equivalent of a souped up Gran Torino, loaded with TNT, exploded in front of Vinnie's Restaurant on account of he whacked Vittorio "Two-Fingers".

  • Moderating asteroids?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gaber1187 ( 681071 ) * on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:16PM (#6990030)
    Maybe scientists should apply the slashdot moderation process to asteroids, (5, Interesting), (6, Oh crap)...

    but seriously, I think part of the problem is that scientists want to be the first to publish something about important things they have found, so we end up with people racing to the press to say they found something before other people found it.

    Maybe what they need is some sort of identifier showing how much data has been collected to tell people how certain the track is. Right now, they just say, ooh, 1 in a million chance based on small dataset with huge error bars. But in reality it should be 1 in 5 billion because our error bars are huge. I really think this is the scientists fault for publishing really early data that has not been corroborated yet or refined--not the press... its not like they are hacking into the scientists computers and misinterpreting data, its the scientist trying to impress a good looking journalist or something or get some recognition...

    --if only coffee and techno came in the same drink...

  • Psychology vs. Utility Theory (Score:5, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:21PM (#6990062)
    The human brain is immensely bad at assessing risks and consequences. Just look at the relative frequencies of fear-of-flying vs. fear-of-riding-in-a-car and compare those frequencies with the objective safety data for the two modes of transport. Add in fear of the unknown vs. complacency with the commonplace and all logic of probability and expected value go out the window. Since most people have never experienced an asteroid strike and since most asteroids never strike the Earth, it is easy to discount the possibility of the event.

    And even statistics is inadequate for assessing the threat. On a deeper level, no single asteroid threat scale can work if different people have different levels of risk aversion. Which would you prefer: 1) an event that has a 1-in-a-million chance of killing 1 billion people or 2) an event that has a 100% chance of killing 1000 people. Different people will argue for different preferences despite the fact that both events have the same expected value of 1000 people dead. Some, who are risk averse, would abhor even the remotest possibility that a billion people might perish. Others, who are risk seeking, would rather take a 99.9999% chance of nobody dying to avoid the option in which 1000 people are most certainly killed.

    Overall, I can see why the scientists want to downplay all the preliminary sightings of asteroids. With too little tracking data, nearly every rock they find looks like it might hit the Earth sometime. The real question is: how many false alarms can the public tolerate? If it is 1 false alarm per month, then scientists should only publish a threat assessment once a month.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:24PM (#6990085)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • No one will care by 2014. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:28PM (#6990104)
    After the second civil war, we'll be much more worried about the next world war [johntitor.com], which will make a mere asteroid crashing into the earth look like a tiny drop in the bucket.
  • But the lotto is worse odds than that and millions play that :)

    We do need to take any threat seriously though, it will drastically affect life on earth.
  • Who gives a damn if the probability is 1:100,000,000 -- the more scares the more likely stupid bumpkins will fund space travel.

    What we really need is a good 1:1 for people to think about. That will get us into space in a hurry.

  • The role of the media has long since been entertainment and titillation, rather than information. If it's bad, frightening, panic-indusing, worrying, or rabble-rousing, they'll print it.

  • Turn the public's fear to your own good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hamster Lover ( 558288 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:43PM (#6990205) Journal
    Astonomers should embrace the public's irrational fear and push Congress for more funding on the locations of earth intersecting asteroids.

    It worked for the PATRIOT act, why not astronomy?

  • How to deal with an asteroid that might collide (Score:3, Interesting)

    by soft_guy ( 534437 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:45PM (#6990221)
    I know this is a little off topic, but...

    I was thinking about the various reports I've heard about deflecting an asteroid or shooting it with a missle. One idea I just thought of would be to somehow increase the speed of the asteroid so that it would miss earth. Maybe by using a solar sail or attaching rockets to it that would increase it's speed. If you had enough warning ahead of time then maybe you wouldn't actually have to have much acceleration as long as it was continuous (such as the solar sail idea).

    Do you think that would be possible? Would it work any better than blowing it up or deflection?

  • Simple solution (Score:5, Informative)

    by peacefinder ( 469349 ) <alan.dewitt@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:46PM (#6990223) Journal
    I've been following the Current Impact Risks [nasa.gov] page ever since I found out about it over a year ago.

    In order to report on this issue responsibly, all that's required is to ignore any object on the list until the NEO survey folks has collected observations over a span of 20 days or more. Before that, the orbits are too unclear to be worth reporting upon. Practically all objects fall of the list before the obeservations span 20 days.

    Sadly, some reporters want to get the story out first, so they jump the gun.

  • Win the lottery (Score:3, Funny)

    by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:48PM (#6990233) Journal
    I will sell, to the highest bidder, a lottery ticket in the year 2014 which will guarantee you a 1 in a million chance of winning a multi-million dollar jackpot.

    Boy, the media should pick up on this story and cause some hysteria.
  • However:

    "Scientists" cannot entirely escape blame either. For decades they have existed in an unofficial unholy union with the press.

    "Warning! Recent study says if you've ever heard the word "FAT" you're going to die! 1000 times more likely to die TOMORROW!"

    Appendix Z of study:

    Technically our findings are true. We're all going to die. There's also a 1 in .9999999999 chance that we were looking up our own assholes while collecting the data, which was statistically insignificant anyway and our methodology

  • Panic! (Score:2)

    by ajs ( 35943 )
    Asteroids are panicing?! We should panic!

  • It's their own fault (Score:5, Interesting)

    by harlows_monkeys ( 106428 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:57PM (#6990287) Homepage
    OK, let's think about this. Astronomers find an asteroid that has an extremely remote chance, BASED ON PRELIMINARY CALCULATIONS of hitting Earth 11 YEARS FROM NOW. It will take another TWO OR THREE DAYS days to get more accurate calculations.

    So...what do they do? Instead of waiting the two days and seeing if the risk is real, they announce right away.

    Let's consider the possibilities if they had waited a couple of days. In the overwhelmingly most likely case, they find after a couple days that things are OK, and so say nothing. No panic. All is well.

    In the extremely unlikely case, it turns out it does have a reasonable chance of hitting the Earth, perhaps high enough that we actually need to do something about it. In that case, would a delay of TWO DAYS OUT OF 11 YEARS really have made a difference?

    Either someone was very irresponsible in announcing in the first place, or someone was trying to get publicity for astronomers (perhaps to help with funding?)

  • What a difference punctuation makes... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mph ( 7675 ) <mph@freebsd.org> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @07:11PM (#6990385)
    Astronomers Upset About Asteroid. Panic!

  • Why not just run with the fear? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sunnan ( 466558 ) <sunnan@handgranat.org> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @07:13PM (#6990399) Homepage Journal
    Asteroid scares (along with virii and genetic engineering) are an important part of contemporary mythology, just like radiation in the fifties. Until there are proper anti-asteroid mechanisms in place we need to exaggerate and fret over these percieved threats. It dulls our eyes to the pain of everyday problems and frustrating hierarchic structures. Give the people dreams of threats from space lest they get restless and rise anew.

  • Media - right, astronomers - wrong (Score:3, Interesting)

    by danila ( 69889 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @11:23PM (#6991653) Homepage
    Actually sensational journalists are right. Look, do you think that a train derailing and killing a hundred people should be reported? OK, I thought so. Asteroid marked 1 on Torino scale has a 1 in a million chance to collide with Earth and to destroy a continent, killing 2 billion people in the process. The expected value of damage to the humankind is thus a couple billion dollars and 2 thousand people. Do you still think this should not be reported? Do you still think this is not dangerous and scary?

  • It is about funding (Score:3, Insightful)

    by amightywind ( 691887 ) on Thursday September 18, 2003 @07:41AM (#6993324) Journal
    Astronomers have been so horrified by press scares over asteroids that they are toning down the scale they use to rate the threat posed in an attempt to discourage journalists from covering potential collisions.

    How disengenuous. For years astronomers have whipped up a frenzy about the latest asteroid encounter, presumably to compete for funding with the other "natural disaster" sciences of climatology and volcanology. The amount of funding they is proportional to how much fear they can produce in the the public. slashdot.org dutifully assists by publishing these stories.

  • Technically... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gidds ( 56397 ) <<slashdot> <at> <gidds.me.uk>> on Thursday September 18, 2003 @11:07AM (#6995352) Homepage
    ...it didn't 'briefly have a one-in-a-million chance of crashing into our planet'. It hasn't changed trajectory in the last few days; we're not in any more or less danger, and its chance of crashing into our planet remains the same as it ever was.

    All that's changed is our assessment or understanding of that chance.

    (This message has been brought to you by the Society for Probability And Chance Education. Thank you.)

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