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!
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!
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.
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=
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=
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]
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.
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.:-)
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?
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.
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]
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...
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.
"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"
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
If 357,000 miles is "VERY VERY close" then I am practically inside Angelina Jolie's vagina, considering my proximity to her and what I assume you propose for varying degrees of closeness.
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?
"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>
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.
The same object missed us by 5 million miles -- about 1/8 the separation between Earth and Mars orbits -- two months ago and we didn't see it until two weeks later.
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.
Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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)
Parent
Preview of news media coverage (Score:5, Funny)
"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)
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=
Parent
Re:Preview of news media coverage (Score:5, Informative)
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=
Parent
Re:Preview of news media coverage (Score:5, Interesting)
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]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe I am counting on this too much. 4% is not that high. Cross fingers. Touch chipboard.
Re:Preview of news media coverage (Score:5, Funny)
I doubt NASA would tell the rovers if there was a chance anyways.
Better to just allow the rover to see a shadow, look up, and emit:
0x68 0x6f 0x6c 0x79 0x20 0x63 0x72 0x61 0x70 0x21
Parent
Do your duty, people (Score:5, Funny)
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. :-)
General Buck Turgeson Is On It, Sir! (Score:4, Funny)
Mr. President, we must not allow a gravitationally slingshotted asteroid cave society gap!
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
That first picture... (Score:3, Interesting)
Versus Jupiter (Score:4, Interesting)
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)
Re:Versus Jupiter (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
"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)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ok, so that applies to particles and not astronomy. Fuck up a perfectly good joke...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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)
"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"
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
It's small size. It's diameter is only 30m.
Re:Versus Jupiter (Score:4, Funny)
Figures aren't available on how many light bulbs it will power, though.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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)
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.
Parent
Re:Versus Jupiter (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
That's no astroid! (Score:2)
a few quick calculations by a govt agency... (Score:2)
What! (Score:2)
Wait, what?
Oh. Never mind.
Look at it this way... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Look at it this way... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Increasing probability (Score:5, Informative)
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)
17,000 KM (Score:2)
(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
Wait... (Score:2)
Impact results (Score:4, Informative)
Large Object Also Heading For Earth (Score:5, Informative)
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
Re:Large Object Also Heading For Earth (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
The rovers (Score:4, Interesting)
But what about... (Score:5, Funny)
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)
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)
Yummy.
Odds of astroid impact (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm going to just assume it was a bad attempt at funny moderation, not a serious post.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:scared for earth (Score:4, Informative)
rj
Parent
Murphy's Law Re:Taking All Bets (Score:5, Funny)
Parent