Hi Greg and Greg,
72 years or 172 years, if you are around you'll wish you'd taken better
care of yourself. :-)
--AL Mitterling
Quoting GREG LINDH <[email protected]>:
Hi Greg,
I really suck at math, even so, I believe that would be 172 years
from now, not 72, so you definitely won't be around.
Greg
----------------------------------------
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:23:46 -0700
Subject: [meteorite-list] Scientist Warns Massive Asteroid Could Hit
Earth in 2182
Wow - that's only 72 years from now... Don't think I'll be around
Greg S.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/28/massive-asteroid-hit-earth-warn-scientists/?test=faces
Scientist Warns Massive Asteroid Could Hit Earth in 2182
A large asteroid in space that has a remote chance of slamming into
the Earth would be most likely hit in 2182, if it crashed into our
planet at all, a new study suggests.
The asteroid, called 1999 RQ36, has about a 1-in-1,000 chance of
actually hitting the Earth, but half of that risk corresponds to
potential impacts in the year 2182, said study co-author María
Eugenia Sansaturio of the Universidad de Valladolid in Spain.
Sansaturio and her colleagues used mathematical models to determine
the risk of asteroid 1999 RQ36 impacting the Earth through the year
2200. They found two potential opportunities for the asteroid to hit
Earth in 2182.
The research is detailed in the science journal Icarus.
The asteroid was discovered in 1999 and is about 1,837 feet (560
meters) across. A space rock this size could cause widespread
devastation at an impact site in the remote chance that it hit
Earth, according to a recent report by the National Academy of
Sciences.
Scientists have tracked asteroid 1999 RQ36's orbit through 290
optical observations and 13 radar surveys, but there is still some
uncertainty because of the gentle push it receives from the
so-called Yarkovsky effect, researchers said.
The Yarkovsky effect, named after the Russian engineer I.O.
Yarkovsky who proposed it around 1900, describes how an asteroid
gains momentum from thermal radiation that it emits from its night
side. Over hundreds of years, the effect's influence on an
asteroid's orbit could be substantial.
Sansaturio and her colleagues found that through 2060, the chances
of Earth impacts from 1999 RQ36 are remote, but the odds increase by
a magnitude of four by 2080 as the asteroid's orbit brings it closer
to the Earth.
The odds of impact then dip as the asteroid would move away, and
rise in 2162 and 2182, when it swings back near Earth, the
researchers found. It's a tricky orbital dance that makes it
difficult to pin down the odds of impact, they said.
"The consequence of this complex dynamic is not just the likelihood
of a comparatively large impact, but also that a realistic
deflection procedure (path deviation) could only be made before the
impact in 2080, and more easily, before 2060," Sansaturio said in a
statement.
After 2080, she added, it would be more difficult to deflect the asteroid.
"If this object had been discovered after 2080, the deflection would
require a technology that is not currently available," Sansaturio
said. "Therefore, this example suggests that impact monitoring,
which up to date does not cover more than 80 or 100 years, may need
to encompass more than one century."
By expanding the timeframe for potential impacts, researchers would
potentially identify the most threatening space rocks with enough
time to mount deflection campaigns that are both technologically and
financially feasible, Sansaturio said.
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