Yes, I said April 13th 2029. That date is 8,875 days from now and it may just be the end of the earth as we know it. Why, you ask? I have always been interested in
NEO's. No, not Neo, the character from the
Matrix movies, but
Near
Earth
Objects, those comets and asteroids that come far too close to our orbit and have the potential of impacting.
NASA's Near Earth Object program is charged with gathering data about these objects, some small, some very large. Well, one of these pesky critters, called
2004 MN4, has now reached the
highest hazard score to date. NASA issued a press release on Thursday saying that the odds of hitting Earth was 1:300. They updated this on Friday to
1:60! I do like how optimistic NASA is:
December 24 Update: 2004 MN4 is now being tracked very carefully by many astronomers around the world, and we continue to update our risk analysis for this object. Today's impact monitoring results indicate that the impact probability for April 13, 2029 has risen to about 1.6%, which for an object of this size corresponds to a rating of 4 on the ten-point Torino Scale. Nevertheless, the odds against impact are still high, about 60 to 1, meaning that there is a better than 98% chance that new data in the coming days, weeks, and months will rule out any possibility of impact in 2029.
The usual scientific optimism! What if it does impact? 2004 NM4 is about 0.39 km in diameter (about 1/4 mile for the
metrically challenged) and weighs 83,000,000,000 kg or 182.6 trillion pounds With these dimensions and moving at us at 12.59 km/s or almost 100,000 miles per hour, it is estimated to have an impact energy of 1570 megatons of TNT. The
atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in WWII had an estimated energy of 15,000 tons or 0.015 megatons of TNT. Do the math - we are talking the equivalent of over
104,666 Hiroshima-size bombs.
With good reason, NASA has assigned it a
Torino Impact Hazard Scale rating of 4 which is described as "a close encounter, with 1% or greater chance of a collision capable of causing regional devastation." Regional? Like let's devastate North America? This is the highest rating in the yellow range of the scale (orange and red are higher). This little space rock warrants watching! I'd be 77 and if I am still on this blue marble, I want to go see it hit. Well, maybe I'll watch it on TV. Maybe I'll watch it on TV from the bunker.
With this entry, I am inaugurating the first category on the blog, Astronomy. More on this one as additional observations come in from observatories around the world.
And, oh, did I mention? April 13 2029 just happens to fall on a Friday.
Friday the Thirteenth.
(from
Slashdot with a very long and interesting thread following it) via
Findory)
