Schoolboy Corrects NASA's Math On Killer Asteroid

spiracle writes "A German schoolboy, Nico Marquardt, has revised NASA's figures for the chances that the Apophis asteroid will hit earth. Apparently if the asteroid hits a satellite in 2029, its path could be diverted enough to cause it to collide with Earth on the next orbit, in 2036. NASA had calculated the chances as 1 in 45,000 but the 13-year-old, in his science project, made it 1 in 450. NASA agreed." Update: 04/16 16:47 GMT by Z : This is not entirely accurate, it turns out — more details.

Not peer reviewed.

[Plazmid]

Not peer reviewed.

Oh, greeeaaaat.

[sammy baby]

From TFA:

The shockwaves from that would create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely.

And thanks to little Nico, we now know that the likelihood of this happening is one thousand times greater than we thought.

Thanks, little buddy! You're a regular ray of sunshine.

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oh shit!

[Lord Apathy]

Not Good!!!

Re:Oh, greeeaaaat.

[wizardforce]

one hundred, do you by chance work at NASA? :P

Re:Other news stories on this

[Plazmid]

Still, no one has scrutinized the boy's work for math errors. So don't start training Bruce Willis just yet.

Unix 1 - Humanity 0

[rubypossum]

And the 2038k problem solves itself, thus vindicating Ken Thompson and pessimists everywhere.

Either NASA was using FORTRAN again...

[Theatetus]

...or they forgot to do the metric conversion. Again.

His peers

[goombah99]

Still, no one has scrutinized the boy's work for math errors.

Well surely we can find another school boy to peer review it.

Re:Damn zeros

[kcbanner]

I guess NASA was using MS Excel to do their calculations.

So if it does hit a sat will we know about it?

[QuantumG]

And how long will it take to figure out if we're boned? 2 years? That leaves about 5 years to do something about it.. or, ya know, go on a long killing spree.

Dang

[mandolin]

I hope that kid won the science competition he was in!

"... and for my science project, I proved NASA wrong and made a discovery of potentially epic proportions..."

Kindof tough to follow that one.

no worries kid...

[Anonymous Coward]

you'd have to be 340 years old to get hit by it...

Obligatory...

[bennomatic]

I for one welcome our new German asteroid overlords.

DOUBLE OH-NOES!!!

[Plazmid]

OH-NOES! Kurzweil predicted that sometime in the 2030s computers will be able to match human brains. Combined with this recent news, this means we have to worry about killer robot overlords AND killer asteroids ending the world! OH-NOES!

Re:His peers

[RuBLed]

Thoughts of another schoolboy:
"But if we make it strike the Earth and not one of those sattelites in 2029, the probability of it striking the Earth in 2036 is NIL. NASA agreed."

Re:Unix 1 - Humanity 0

[Dunbal]

2038 years should be enough for anybody

Re:Damn him!

[jamesh]

Now lets burn down the observatory so this can never happen again!

In related news

[goombah99]

Congress announced today that there's a 1 in 450 chance you will be eligible for social security at retirement.

There's an alanis morriset kind of irony here. If we were just moneys in trees and had not put up the sattelites we would not have magnified our risk a 100 fold.

Given that sort of cosmic irony, I predict it has to hit Hubble.

And speaking of hubble they should have known it had a faulty mirror when they say the stencil on it that said "asteroids in mirror are closer than they appear".

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

In other news...

[kpainter]

NASA has plan to deal with killer satellite by 2054.

Re:Where's the math?

[fmarkham]

The fourth R which is no longer taught is RTFAing

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Google translation of German source

[goombah99]

Here's the (semi hilarious) machine translation [google.com].

I forgot the World Downfall chosen! ... AND NASA HAS SAID, I HAVE QUITE

BY MICHAEL SAUERBIER

Potsdam - He is the greatest threat our planet: On Sunday, 13 April 2036, the asteroid crosses "Apophis" the orbit.
Nevertheless, the probability that we killer lumps from the All true, is 0.2 percent! This is a student from Potsdam calculated.

And doing so, Nico Marquardt (13) the research of NASA corrected! For his disturbing discovery was the small physics genius now for the youth researchers Prize.
"The asteroid has left me no rest," says the SiebtklÃssler from Potsdamer Humboldt Gymnasium. "On the Internet, I had high bets on the impact of Apophis was discovered. But NASA is the impact likely only 1 to 45000. I wanted to know how it really is. "
With the telescope of the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam Nico was allowed to observe asteroids train.
The student: "Then I said Spahn professor at the University of Potsdam, as the attractions of the sun, moon and earth the way of Apophis influence." Astrophysicists had a suitable formula.
Nico: "With Professor Landgraf, ESA's satellite control center, I train then recalculated."
Frightening picture: "The harvest probability is 1 to 450," said a young astronomer. For comparison: For a lottery-six (without super number), it is at 1 in 14 million.

Nico: "When would the impact force of 98000 Hiroshima bombs freely. Stürben million people, dust would darken the sky, a super-tsunami swamped parts of the earth. "
But: "I hope that Apophis nearly vorbeischrammt to us ..."

Re:Oh, greeeaaaat.

[Anonymous Coward]

one hundred, do you by chance work at NASA? :P

Yes, and he's using the Imperial probability system, not the metric probability system.

Hollywood

[Eth1csGrad1ent]

And now Hollywood can turn the German boy into an American boy, chuck the complex math for a backyard telescope, name the asteriod after the boy, throw in a baby to add drama and get Morgan Freeman to play the President... Oh wait... ...never mind.

Re:Damn him!

[Anonymous Coward]

Righhht.... sure, Lord Apathy, we believe ya....

That's it...

[FoolsGold]

We're all gonna die!

I bet by the time 2036 hits, stats will how it's now without a doubt, the year of Linux on the desktop. But it won't matter cos we'll be dead. Wouldn't that be a kick in the balls.

Re:Google translation of German source

[Plazmid]

Definitely not peer reviewed.

Chances

[8ball629]

Chances it hits the Earth after hitting a satellite... 450:1.

Chances it hits the precise satellite at the precise angle at the precise rotation... 98493250:1 (the same chance Duke Nukem Forever is released this year).

Re:No suprise here...

[rednaxel]

Who is John Galt?

WoW

[Plazmid]

C'mon the matrix won't be that bad. It'll probably be just as fun and addicting as World of Warcraft.

How about THESE odds...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just finished viewing (literally minutes ago!) the History Channel's S01 E03 of "The Universe" that deals with this very asteroid... then I promptly log onto Slashdot and find THIS headline.

I'm guessing the odds of that happening are even more remote than this thing hitting earth, schoolboy corrections or not!

At least we don't have to worry

[The Bender]

Well, think on the bright side.
At least we don't have to worry about fixing the 2038 UNIX 32-bit date bug [wikipedia.org] any more.

Re:200 Billion Tons of (mostly) Iron?!?

[Dannkape]

Have you taken the laws of anvilology into consideration?

- Falling anvils never kill, only crush. (Maybe the Flat Earth Society could be right after all...)
- Anvils will stay in the air until noticed.(But how do we keep people from looking at the sky?)
- Maybe we better go with a safe, as that could allow us to open it afterwards and release a slightly squeezed (and cubed) planet...

Darn!

[fluffykitty1234]

And I just read Duke Nukem Forever is slated to ship in 2037. :(

Re:Other news stories on this

[arivanov]

That should be "Do not start cloning Bruce Willis just yet". Fixed that for ya...

We are talking 2036 after all... Unless it will be a tragicomic spoof of both Space Cowboys and Armageddon.

Re:His peers

[arivanov]

We just need to make sure it is in a place like Germany, France or Russia where they still teach terrorist material like mathematics, physics and chemistry in school.

Re:Not peer reviewed.

[ZX3 Junglist]

Honey, Hi. It's Me. Your sense of humor. Can't we sit down and talk sometime? I'm a mess without you. Please say you miss me. I know deep down you feel the same way.

Re:there's no way this is true

[enoz]

It appears we have a 200 billion tonne asteroid [google.com] in a possible collision against a satellite weighing between 200KG and several tonnes [wikipedia.org]

I'd say it's more like the haystack hitting the needle.

Re:So.....

[nametaken]

Nonsense. Everyone knows that for an asteroid on a collision course with Earth you call Bruce Willis. At least he has a drill, a nuke and a fatherly love for Liv Tyler. It's very different from the kind of love I have for Liv Tyler, and makes him do heroic things like blow up killer asteroids at his own peril.

All Harrison Ford has is a stupid whip. All that's good for is killing Nazis and stealing rocks from crazy people.

And if anyone says Chuck Norris, I'm gunna scream. You call him when someone steals your Mountain Dew.

Re:Friday the 13th

[MrNaz]

26,000 Hiroshimas?! Why, that's almost an Africa!

Re:oh shit!

[hosecoat]

do not want

Re:Um, was this by any chance an April Fools paper

[PatrickThomson]

As it turns out, space is big

You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

Re:Friday the 13th

[commodoresloat]

Volcanic ash, when mixed with crushed limestone, makes some of the best concrete. At least, the Romans thought so. That's what they used.

Of course, they're dead now.

Fuzzy math

[commodoresloat]

Huh, wait a second. The estimates for the Hiroshima bomb is 13-16 kiloton which would make it in the 340-415 megaton range. That's just 8 times the Tsar Bomba of 50 megaton the Soviets tested, and last I checked the world did fine. That number must be way off or the potential damages way exaggerated.

Sounds like they need another German schoolboy to help them out here.

Re:Friday the 13th

[besalope]

Hiroshima wouldn't see a drop of water. It's relatively shielded by the island Shikoku. Tokyo on the other hand might be saved only if Godzilla intervenes.

Re:Other news stories on this

[amRadioHed]

But to bring it all together in a car analogy for the fellow /.ers... How does a .22 bullet deflect an oncoming semitruck forcing into the little old lady on the sidewalk?

Aim for the driver.

Re:Friday the 13th

[GBC]

I am still not following. Could you please tell me how many Libraries of Congress blowing up that equals?

Re:Friday the 13th

[MichaelSmith]

Tokyo on the other hand might be saved only if Godzilla intervenes.

Thank God. I thought there was going to be no hope at all.

Re:Where's the math?

[PhilHibbs]

Redirect The F'ing Asteroid?

*** STOP PRESS ***

[PinkyDead]

This just in: Kindergarten kid corrects 13 year old student's earlier correction of NASA calculation.

Chance of impact now 1 in 4.

Toddler's have be banned from using calculators for fear they will doom us all.

Doom Us All, I tells ya!

Re:Friday the 13th

[Missing_dc]

Not so, Sir. They EVOLVED into Italians.

Re:Dang

[AnotherUsername]

Actually, since he used APA citation format instead of MLA, he was disqualified. The kid with the Egg Drop Demonstration won.

You damned kids!

[sm62704]

Dilbert [dilbert.com] on the "Millineum generation"

Now get off my lawn! Damned kids! And take your calculators with you! (grumble mumble where'd I put my lawnmower?)

Re:So if it does hit a sat will we know about it?

[Zebedeu]

You and I, we haven't been watching the same movies.

Re:Other news stories on this

[defile39]

I knew there was a use for chaos theory, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and Schroedinger's cat . . . let's just all close our eyes preceding the collision . . . if we never observe it, we never know the outcome . . . and we'll all survive . . . or not . . . but we'll never know.

Re:Other news stories on this

[Anonymous Coward]

Supposing we built a giant wooden badger. Then place it in a precise orbit so that it gets hit, but this... badger has sufficient mass to change the orbit of the asteroid so that it no longer is resonating with the Earth's orbit.

Re:Friday the 13th

[JudgeFurious]

Can one of you Brainiacs convert this into a figure that the rest of us ordinary folks can understand like "Libraries of Congress" please? Is that too much to ask?

Re:Other news stories on this

[Otter Popinski]

This object is in an orbit which resonates with our own orbit. It is certain to continue close approaches with Earth until either (1) it hits us or (2) is thrown into a totally different orbit, most likely as a result of a very close approach.

Option (3) involves Bruce Willis and is considered by NASA to be a last resort.

Re:Other news stories on this

[Anonymous Coward]

just shoot the tire you idiot!

*whoosh*

[grahamd0]

  o-- -  *whoosh*
    ^ the point

     O
    -|-  <- You
    / \

Re:Dang

[tim_darklighter]

Yeah, he beat out the 15-year-old who got admitted to Pacific Tech for his laser work.

Re:Correction: Source wrong

[oni]

Thanks for posting that. Now I feel like going back through the thread and finding anyone who posted, "har har NASA kant dew math!" or "har har, it's a german kid because we don't teach math in the US!!" and replying with a link to your post and the word "owned"

People are *incredibly* quick to assume NASA is wrong.

Re: Your .sig

[Dareth]

Genesis 1:32 And God typed :wq!

Your .sig made me really think. Then when that hurt too much, this came to mind:

And God thought, surely there must be a better editor than this. So He summarized some options:
A. Intelligently design Richard Stallman so he can write Emacs.
B. Just start a process of evolution that leads to greedy parasitic organism that like to control and manipulate everything around them. Richard Stallman should naturally evolve in opposition to such an environment.

Perhaps God didn't want to take direct responsibility for option A, and option B gives better deniable plausibility.

The end ain't commin?

[Sgt_Astro]

Whew, guess I can stop stockpiling bullets and beer then.