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.
Nothing to worry about? (Score:4, Interesting)
Thanks for the breakdown ... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
Not a Chance! (Score:2, Interesting)
John Young strikes again. (Score:4, Interesting)
http://space.balettie.com/Young.html [balettie.com]
Guess it's time to update those "how likely we are to die" stats.
Although maybe not, considering this isn't of the 1km and above weight class.
10 Krakatoas (Score:1, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa [wikipedia.org]
Ouch.
Re:Nothing to worry about? (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, but we're entering an age where we have, or will probably soon have, the technology to not only detect these threats, but also to destroy them. Just because it hasn't happened before in the course of recorded human history, doesn't mean we can be complacent.
uhm... (Score:2, Interesting)
a 1/233 chance of it hitting earth sounds like fairly good odds to me, considering odds of other asteroids... I want to be concerend for another 24 (close enough) years...
Darwin Awards, 2029 (Score:4, Interesting)
You see, the smart will evacuate the target impact area, and the "Award Winners" will flock to the area for the event.
Damn, I just hope *I* can resist going... after all, it *will* be an impressive show. We're talking 1.9 gigatons!
Re:Nothing to worry about? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and Frankly, I welcome our new Rock Based over lords.
Re:Select surivivors NOW (Score:2, Interesting)
Strangelove: No sir... [right arm rolls his wheelchair backwards.] Excuse me. [struggles with wayward right arm, ultimately subduing it with a beating from his left.] Also when... when they go down into the mine everyone would still be alive. There would be no shocking memories, and the prevailing emotion will be ne of nostalgia for those left behind, combined with a spirit of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead! Ahhhh! [Right hand reflexes into Nazi salute. He pulls it back into his lap and beats it again. Gloved hand attempts to strangle him.]
Re:What is the Point? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a problem of motivating people to non-immediate problems. Like environmental issues, these are not things that engage us now. OTOH terrorism and SARS puts people in an acute panic. With something like asteroids, environmental damage people have to start working on problems now even though there appears to be no good reason to do so.
So getting back to your question, why post about this and why make people aware of a looming future threat? Because hopefully, physicists, mathematicians, and engineers out there realize that this is quite important and might take part in coming up with solutions that could (yes) save earth. And maybe people will make the connection that humans striving for space travel, exploration, and colonization of space is also an activity that can save our ass -- rather than waste precious precious money.
And everyone else can realize, damn, life may well be shorter than we all expect, and be grateful that they and everyone else they know is still alive.
Ever Wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)
Would this be one of those instances of '95% of all statistics are made up'?
I mean, it seeams if he could get a somewhat reasonable graps at the trajectory and distance of the asteroid thy could get a fair guess about probability of impact and location of impact, but how do they arbitrarily convert a guess into a number ratio?
I guess I'd just like to see the math on how they come up with these numbers.
Re:Nothing to worry about? (Score:2, Interesting)
Nothing.
So lets first develope some strategy/technique to avoid such a disaster and then start detecting the probable hits. Putting money in detecting first will waste of money and time.
We will be in more panick situation if we know there is something which is going to hit us but we can't do anything about it.
Re:Friday the 13th (Score:1, Interesting)
Friday the 13th is considered unlucky only in Western, Christian-dominated cultures: there is no such superstition in Asia or the Islamic world. And most other cultures consider it a very lucky number.
Odder yet, since in the Gregorian calendar, the 13th is slightly more likely to fall on a Friday than on any other day of the week, and any month beginning on a Sunday will by default have a Friday the 13th.
Still, Paraskevidekatriaphobia, (fear of Friday the 13th) seems common enough to moronically influence our lives and behavior (why most buildings have no 13'th floor and Room 13 so often disappears).
But we live in America and as recent events continue to demonstrate, seem extraordinarily naive.
James
Re:Nothing to worry about? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Updated to a Torino value of 4. Uh oh. (Score:4, Interesting)
Capture? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, there would be some problems. First, as you change the orbit, there's the chance that you'll chage the target country from Outer Bleen to Inner Bleen, upsetting the inhabitants. Then, as you manuver the rock, you're going to probably annoy someone else. The ability to direct such a rock would constitute a "weapon of mass destruction."
I'm guessing positioning the thing for "aerobraking" in the Earth's atmosphere would make some folks nervous, too.
Ok, so this wouldn't be a project where you'd want to mix up your feet and meters or have someone say "oopsie!"
The shame is, humans don't have the brains or organization to take advantage of this opportunity. If this hunk of space junk is going to hit the Earth, I'm not sure we will move it in time. We certainly can move it. I just don't think we'll get our act together.
I wonder who'll be the first to suggest that an impact will be a good thing since the dust may greatly reduce global warming?
Re:Phobias (Score:2, Interesting)
By the way, it is 36 letters long.
yes, but in Japanese... (Score:3, Interesting)
so we are doomed after all
Re:Capture? how about catch-and-release? (Score:2, Interesting)
Has anyone checked if it's an Apollo rocket body? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does anyone remember the concern in Sept 2002 when an object dubbed "J002E3" was initially believed to be an Earth-crossing asteroid or previously-unknown moon was discovered? [ref: Slashdot [slashdot.org], Planetary Society [planetary.org], CNN [cnn.com]] It turned out to be the Apollo 12 3rd stage rocket body. The mistake was made because an object as bright as it was, if as reflective as a rock, would have been huge. But it wasn't a dark rock - it was a shiny metal cylinder. It had been re-captured into Earth orbit after decades in solar orbit.
Probably every lunar probe and manned mission has sent a rocket booster into solar orbit as space junk. While probabilities of a 2004 MN4 collision in the future are computed, astronomers with the proper data should also try to project it back to see where it was during the Apollo era. Check if it may have come from Earth.
Actually, I'm pretty sure astronomers are already projecting 2004 MN4's orbit back in time to see if there were any other observations of the object before. So this is something else for them to check.
For others to investigate: US Surveyor 3 rocket? (Score:4, Interesting)
I found an online tool to compute estimated positions of the 2004 MN4 asteroid according to the known estimates of its orbit. See http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=2004+MN4 [nasa.gov] .
I ran it backwards in 3-month intervals looking for times that 2004 MN4 has last been near Earth. By this data, there was a very near pass by Earth around April 16-19, 1967.
So I looked through a catalog of lunar launches [nasa.gov]. The NASA lunar probe Surveyor 3 was launched April 17, 1967.
This alone is not sufficient to prove that 2004 MN4 is a booster from Surveyor 3. (Logic still dictates that the scenario of 2004 MN4 being a threatening asteroid is still a possibility on the table.) But with a coincidence as shown in these numbers, Surveyor 3 must be considered in any investigation into 2004 MN4.
Re:Has anyone checked if it's a rocket body? (Score:3, Interesting)