Introducing Asteroid 2004 MN4 633
Numerous readers wrote in with bits about a potential asteroid collision: "The recently discovered asteroid 2004 MN4 is currently listed as having a 1/233 chance of hitting the Earth. It is 420 m across and if it strikes the Earth it will release an energy of 1,900 Megatons of TNT (the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, Tsar Bomba had a yield of only 50 Megatons). It is also the only asteroid that currently has a Torino scale value of 2." So, in summary, there's a 1-in-233 chance of the worst disaster in recorded history happening on April 13, 2029, and a 232-in-233 chance of nothing happening. Have a nice day! Update: 12/24 22:14 GMT by M : The rock is now rated a 4 on the Torino scale, or a 1-in-62 chance of impact.
Re:Nothing to worry about? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just like the previous thousands of years?
Re:Nothing to worry about? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Maybe (Score:2, Insightful)
Many rocks have many times the surface area of a single rock, so much more of them would be burned up in the atmosphere.
The problem (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that there are at least 232 OTHER asteroids that have only a 1/233 chance of hitting earth.
Geographical location? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd wanna emigrate to the country directly opposite of the impact, start a business and buy farms (critical for survival). Also important will be buying of important real estate, for example if its hitting the oceans, buy higher land areas in Bangladesh and start building apartments. Heck just buy the land, let others build apartments close to doomsday.
Shares of companies researching food sources that do not require sunlight, or low light will jump...
Calculate the impact for yourself. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Select surivivors NOW (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't we know if it will hit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, I realize that it's one thing to track an object from earth, and another to track something that's a light year or farther away. But it would still appear to be a straightforward task: get enough pictures that you can tell where it is and where it's going, and interpolate.
So what's the bottleneck here? Poor imaging? Not enough photos? Bad angles? Something else?
way of life? (Score:3, Insightful)
Last I checked, my way of life definitely does *not* include deep habitable mines. It doesn't even have any shallow habitable mines. I can't remember any kind of mine, actually. Pretty mine-free over here.
Re:Maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
Why maybe when all the numbers are available online? Ten million megaton of TNT equivalent of energy is enough energy to vaporize 2 x 10^16 kg water. The Atlantic Ocean by itself has 3 x 10^20 kg of water. That is about 1 part in 10,000 of just the second largest ocean.
That's a lot of water but a very small fraction of the total.
Re:Nothing to worry about? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thanks for the breakdown ... (Score:3, Insightful)
At 10km away, everything gets blown up by the earthquake, ejecta and blast wave. So, if it DOES hit, you'll probably be ok unless you happen to live close to the impact site.
Re:but where? (Score:2, Insightful)
not that calamitous (Score:2, Insightful)
Asteroid: It is 420 m across and if it strikes the Earth it will release an energy of 1,900 Megatons of TNT (the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, Tsar Bomba had a yield of only 50 Megatons).
Earthquake: Geoscience Australia said an earthquake measuring 8.6 on the Richter scale releases energy equivalent to about 10,000 atom bombs like the one that destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima in World War II.
I dunno, this asteroid threat doesn't sound like anything particularly worrisome, unless you happen to live right where the thing falls.
Re:Updated to a Torino value of 4. Uh oh. (Score:2, Insightful)
CNN Article [cnn.com]
Re:Thanks for the breakdown ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It broke up, there was no fireball, and I could make more impact overpressure (I chose to be 1,800 km from the impact site) by clapping my hands real hard.
Then again, an impact like "mine" happens every 4,000 years or so.
too fast (Score:3, Insightful)
from the JPL link:
Vimpact 12.59 km/s