On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:45:52 -0500 ChemE Stewart <[email protected]> wrote:
> Jed, I am in your camp on this. It is time we figure out all that is > orbiting out there, some of it at extremely high speeds and energy levels I > believe. There may be less to this than meets the eye. Looking around for something besides Pravda as a reporter, I found: http://io9.com/5986954/could-a-comet-hit-mars-in-2014 It says: === It seems the likelihood of an awesome planetary impact is low — for now. According to calculations by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), close approach data suggests the comet is most likely to make a close pass of 0.0007 AU (that's approximately 63,000 miles from the Martian surface). However, there's one huge caveat. Due to uncertainties in the observations (the comet has only been observed for 74 days), it's difficult for astronomers to forecast the comet's precise location in 20 months time; comet C/2013 A1 may fly past at a very safe distance of 0.008 AU (650,000 miles). But to the other extreme, its orbital pass could put Mars directly in its path. At the time of Mars close approach (or impact), the comet will be barreling along at a breakneck speed of 35 miles per second (126,000 miles per hour). === So nobody knows for sure, but it's unlikely to hit Mars. I may not know what I am talking about, but although Jupiter was hit by Shoemaker-Levy it is closer to the asteroid belt than Earth, which seems like it would make it more likely that an asteroid would wander toward it; being 11 times the diameter of Earth makes it a bigger target, and maybe with umpteen times Earth's gravity it tends to suck in space junk more voraciously than Earth does. I am more worried about being swallowed by one of ChemE's sinkholes than by being clobbered by an asteroid.
