What To Do About an Asteroid That Has a 1 In 625 Chance of Hitting Us In 2040? 412
The Bad Astronomer writes "The asteroid 2011 AG5 is 140 meters across: football-stadium-sized. Its orbit isn't nailed down well enough to say yet, but using what's currently known, there's a 1 in 625 chance it will impact the Earth in 2040. It's behind the Sun until September 2013, and more observations taken then will probably reduce the odds of impact to something close to 0. But does it make sense to wait until then to start investigating a mission to deflect it away our planet? Astronomers are debating this right now, and what they conclude may pave the way for how we deal with an asteroid threat in the future."
I don't see the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
If it hits, it wipes out the major cause of habitat destruction, global warming and talk radio. If it misses, the sales of tinfoil hats and doomsday billboards will restore the global economy.
18 months won't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it makes sense to wait. Why waste 18 months coming up with solutions to deflect it only to find out it won't strike 27 years from now? If September 2013 rolls around and it looks like it will hit in 2040, 27 years is practically as much time as 28 years to develop a solution.
Easy answer (Score:5, Insightful)
reailty check? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Astrometrics ain't like quantum mechanics boy.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do statements like "The coin has a 1 in 2 chance of coming up heads" also bother you?
Re:Attach a solar sail (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless the math is wrong, or a solar storm changes the track or ... and you alter the path to make it hit dead center instead of a grazing shot. That's the problem with orbital mechanics - stuff changes over the years and depending on other gravitational interactions, what you thought was a deflection was a centering action. W00t.
But you *know* there's a rock out there with Humanity's name on it. This one. Another one. Doesn't really matter. If we can't get off this planet in serious numbers before it hits, the universe goes on without us.
Re:Just... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Idiots! (Score:4, Insightful)
Man those guys were smart. Too bad no one living today is that smart. I bet anything they wrote down must be more true than anything modern people write down. Too bad they didn't actually write down when the earth was going to end and it is only stupid modern people who misinterpret those smart Mayan overlords.
Wait (Score:5, Insightful)
But does it make sense to wait until then to start investigating a mission to deflect it away our planet?
Well lets see, a potential catastrophe is 28 years away and there is 1/625 odds based on the data we do have that it will happen. We will know evidently with much better certainty what that odds are when its a mere 26-27 years away. Given we are talking about altering the path of a massive object in space, I say wait.
If we can't solve the problem in 26 years we mostly likely could not solve it in 28. The odds are already quite low, the cost to do anything about it quite high. If the numbers change after we can see and measure it better thats different. If we had to wait until it was much closer to get the better data that would be different. I don't see any advantage in getting a 12-24 month jump on this, given the time scales, and the complexity of solutions to the problem and risk.
Re:Astrometrics ain't like quantum mechanics boy.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can always turn a deterministic problem into a probabilistic one if enough variables are hidden. But this doesn't mean that the underlying mechanics of the situation are necessarily probabilistic.
The gasoline example you gave above is inherently probabilistic, because you do expect that, given the same perceived initial conditions many times, the outcomes would vary each time the "experiment" is carried out.
When it comes to orbital mechanics, the variability comes not in being inherently unsure of what will change, but from a known error based on number and quality of measurements. This is why the probability of collision numbers change over time - they are really confidence numbers, not probability of occurrence numbers. No matter how many times you measure a fair die roll, the probabilities will always come up the same.
More measurements won't help you with a coin toss, quantum mechanics, or your gasoline example, because it's not possible to gain enough measurements (or in QM's case, there is strong evidence that no such parameters even exist to measure in the first place).