38 replies to this topic

[Frank Merton]

No the odds of a collision sound small but as I said we really don't know in good enough detail to be that sure when it comes so close.  We should worry about this one.  It doesn't have to be at the top of the priorities list, but it should certainly be watched very carefully.

[Capt Amerika]

Mag357, on 03 March 2013 - 04:59 AM, said:

Agreed. Currently 7 billion people and growing. That's a strain on the natural resources. Hate to say it but the herd needs thinned out.

An asteroid impact kills indiscriminately, we can fix our own over population problems quite easily.
We could easily thin out the herd by stopping all the taxpayer funded welfare and handouts.
No more "Free Health care" - Pay your way.
Let nature run its course, you work you eat, you don't, well.... been nice knowing you.
Maybe we wouldn't have 30% dropout rates then either.
at some point you have to stop working to keep people alive that do not contribute to society in any way except to produce offspring.

[woopypooky]

misleading ....1:10 is a chance, 1:1000,000,000 is also a chance

[skookum]

I will be 94 so if I am still about I will be overdue something finishing me off.

[Mikko-kun]

As if NASA or any could give a 100% sure calculation... sure, you can get the 99% and scratch, but the observatory technology doesn't reach that far beyond kuiper belt to tell us whether it could alter it's course far before that time or not. I trust in them to be able to calculate if there is a greater likelihood of it hitting us, but not that it actually wont hit us. They cant predict these things so accurately because the course can be changed due to collisions and gravitational (or quantum if gravitation doesn't exist??) influences with objects we're not aware of.

As a solution for overpopulation... beyond idiocry. It is also a solution for all other life it touches, they didn't deserve it as much as we might've.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Mikko-kun, on 08 March 2013 - 06:16 PM, said:

As if NASA or any could give a 100% sure calculation... sure, you can get the 99% and scratch, but the observatory technology doesn't reach that far beyond kuiper belt to tell us whether it could alter it's course far before that time or not. I trust in them to be able to calculate if there is a greater likelihood of it hitting us, but not that it actually wont hit us. They cant predict these things so accurately because the course can be changed due to collisions and gravitational (or quantum if gravitation doesn't exist??) influences with objects we're not aware of.

As a solution for overpopulation... beyond idiocry. It is also a solution for all other life it touches, they didn't deserve it as much as we might've.

Yours is a very confused post, it is difficult to work out what it is you are trying to say. You also seem to be picking percentages out of mid air.

Firstly asteroids in the Kuiper belt are of no concern. They are no threat to the Earth.

Secondly, whilst you are correct (if I understand you correctly) that orbits can not be determined accurately over very long periods, they can certainly be calculated accurately over periods of a century. That is more than enough time to deflect an asteroid into a safe orbit.

[Mikko-kun]

I threw in 99% and scratch for that century's accuracy you mentioned because of what's beyond Kuiper belt and in there too, affecting the orbits. I didn't say asteroids there were of concern, on the contrary. What's going unnoticed in the Kuiper belt and beyond can shift the odds in both directions. Basic deduction, so I dont take a too trusting stance on what NASA's given odds even if I trust their calculations.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Mikko-kun, on 08 March 2013 - 07:14 PM, said:

I threw in 99% and scratch for that century's accuracy you mentioned because of what's beyond Kuiper belt and in there too, affecting the orbits

Like I said, you just invented a statistic that has no basis in reality. Are you a politician?

Mikko-kun, on 08 March 2013 - 07:14 PM, said:

What's going unnoticed in the Kuiper belt and beyond can shift the odds in both directions.

What's going on in the Kuiper belt is almost totally irrelevant, the vast majority of asteroids which threaten the Earth originate in the asteroid belt.

Despite what films like Armageddon suggest it is highly unlikely that an asteroid will be thrown straight out of the asteroid belt and on to a direct collision course with Earth. The asteroids which are most likely to cause problems are one which have orbits which cross that of the Earth. These are can (and are) calculated with a high degree of certainty and so a collision can be calculated many decades in advance.

Whilst it is true that interactions between objects in the asteroid belt can nudge objects into orbits that will eventually intersect the Earth this is generally a very slow process taking may millennia or even millions of years. Objects which are in the asteroid belt can be effectively discounted as posing a threat to mankind in the foreseeable future.

Mikko-kun, on 08 March 2013 - 07:14 PM, said:

Basic deduction, so I dont take a too trusting stance on what NASA's given odds even if I trust their calculations.

Basic deduction? Pure guess work based on a poor understanding of the subject would be a better description.

What you personally do or don't trust is of no importance. The reality is that NASA is just one of the many organisations tracking these objects. NASA is not the organisation responsible for calculating and publishing the orbits of these bodies, that is the IAU Minor Planet Centre. Once the orbits are published then the objects can be tracked by astronomers from all around the world (in many cases by amateurs too).

In summery it is simply not possible for NASA to lie about an asteroid's orbit for the following reasons:

• In the vast majority of cases it is not NASA that discovered it.
  
• NASA are not responsible for calculating and publishing the orbit.
  
• Once the orbit is published an asteroid can be tracked from observatories all around the world.
  
• Any deviation form the published orbit and the actual orbit would be impossible to hide.

[Mikko-kun]

We're talking about different things, I guess I went off-topic if apophis was an asteroid from the belt... I thought it was from outside our solar system. Sorry for my reading comprehension if that's the case, not the first time that happened. I didn't know people actually worried about the asteroids in the belt too. I'd be more concerned about what's outside the belt, what's there that no one's picked yet with their telescopes and all, thought it might be more relevant to ponder the chances there, considering that we've only recently discovered regularly orbiting things on the outskirts of Kuiper. I do trust in their capacity to observe and calculate the orbits a century in advance when it comes to anything that's regularly between Mars and Jupiter, but if you go beyond Neptune... my bad for mixing asteroid with comet