Oxymoron of the day: Precise Lawyers
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Asteroid's chances of hitting Earth increase
A GERMAN schoolboy of 13 revised NASA calculations, upping the estimate of the risk that the asteroid Apophis will impact the Earth.
The Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported Tuesday that Nico Marquardt used orbital observations from the Astrophysics Institute of Potsdam to correct NASA's original estimate of a 1 in 45,000 chance of a collision up to 1 in 450.
He considered that the asteroid might collide with any one or more of 40,000 satellites during its next closest approach to Earth, which will occur on April 13, 2029.
The satellites orbit the planet at up to 35,880 kilometers altitude, moving at 1.9 miles (3.07 kilometres) per second. The asteroid Apophis will pass by Earth at 32,500 kilometres distance.
If Apophis hits one or more satellite(s) in 2029, that could alter its solar orbit enough to make it impact Earth on its next pass in 2036.
NASA had apparently overlooked the chance that Apophis might hit a satellite or two in 2029. It reportedly told the European Space Agency that Marquardt's revised estimate is correct.
Asteroid Apophis is a mass of solid iron and indium 320 meters in diameter and weighing 200 billion tons. If it impacts Earth, the event will be catastrophic. A similar asteroid impact in the Gulf of Mexico millions of years ago is thought to have killed off the dinosaurs.
The AFP story is here. µ
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If the threat is direct & in 1969,when there were reports of UFO's in America,I saw a massive ice & gas asteroid pass earth a mere whisker away,with an apparent equal size to the moon,though perhaps just a few hundred miles away.
As a last resort,we could send a rocket with Gordon Browns head on top to intercept it.
The density,or mass, of his brain,nust be equal to that of a Black Hole & would either fragment it,or simply make a hole in the middle of it, on it's way through.
In either scenario,we would cure one problem,maybe two,we would also deny a few New Labour fanboys of a few column inches here,lol.
Scare stories are never remembered after the event so say whatever you want and get the reaction now. Aside from glaring errors in the mass, units of measurement, violations of Newton's laws it's still over the top.
But I still don't understand how these numbers were arrived at here, a sphere 70,000km is about is several hundred trillion cubic kilometres of volume, it's VERY unlikely a 320 metre rock cutting a path through this will hit anything, even with 40,000 sattelites zipping about. That's 1 satelitte per 8 cubic billion kilometres ... It's not even likely to clean up some space junk on the way through!

Yet a satelitte hitting the asteroid will do rather alot actually, even a 1-ton satellite is alot.. when you consider that it's traveling at up to 8km/s (18,000mph) with more energy than it's own weight in TNT, and the asteroid is coming the other way at up to 20km/s. That's a hell of a high speed collison. So a 10-ton sattelite could goes off like 50-tons of tnt.. quite a punch... over years this will most certainly change the course 2 billion tons of rock.


Mabe i a little confused but how can a 200 billion ton asreroid traveling at 45.000 mph.be deflected by one satalite with a mass of 1 or 2 tons? The math does not add up.
i guess we shall all die out?

1 episode from the "X-file", when Mulder ask a genie to bring peace to the Earth, then all human vanish. 

i guess it is great that the asteroid send us back to dust form?

at lease then, we don't need to get rip off from the rich anymore, its great to have 0 children, so they don't make no money from us anymore. the only human left, probably are the people living on the space station, damn it, those baztards. (make sure you guys take good pictures when it hit, its priceless)

great job asteroid, but i wonder where would it impact on the Earth, usa? canada? europe? africa? asia? 

any one know where it would hit? if it hits

i'd better get my sun glasses ready.
Most Teenagers Are Much Upset About Pimples, Pimps & Lack of Anything. It is Well Known AT: Thirty Mind Goes Completely Limpied. Germans MUST Have Purpose, TAKE Entire Blinking WORLD With Them. Ya Ya.

I Myself Look at NT7 Stuff sitting on My Mirrored Table & Wonder How IT Can even Fit Together, AS Nothing is OLD. By Time Get To 2035 NT11 Will Be Same OLD Names with Better Game Score. I Fear Large Astroids, Even Altoids.
NT12 on Other Hand, WEll Thats Different Story, ONE You Cann't MI$$. Here in: theinquirer: 32Oct2035 HEADLINER: Prophet Ultie_Tom Deflects Astroid With Karma & Saves Entire EARTH. I Gave UP Pimples Quite Some Time AGO.
Thomas Stewart von DRASHEK
Schoolboy's asteroid-strike sums are wrong
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/esa_german_schoolboy_apophis_denial/
Intelligent life left this planet a long time ago.
Today's papers have all got the mass wrong by a factor of 10,000. It's actually about 20 million tonnes (2e10 kg):

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/a99942.html
Too late. I saw a documentary the other day that proclaims that several "religions" and ancient civilizations have determined that the end of intelligent life on Earth will be December 21, 2012.

Of course, there are those of us who know that intelligent life departed Earth long before that date.

"WE APLOLGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE"
They might be similar in composition but the one which made dinosaurs extinct was about 10 000 meters in diameter. 320 meters of Apophis is nowhere near.
maybe we should just launch some nukes at it when its back side is showing. Talk about a kick in the ass. Expect green peace to kick a big fits.

Ohh well if not we will all just die and need not worry about any chip wars :p

So, a 200 billion ton (after impact) asteroid's course would be altered if it hits a satellite or two weighing in at a whole ton or two.
That's like saying a gnat could knock me from my motorcycle. If it's so easy to knock such a large object off course, then it shouldn't be a problem to time a large nuke to go off in it's path and knock it onto another course in the "other direction". 
A satellite isn't going to do "diddly" even if it weighed 100 tons.
I'm no astrophysicist, but come on.
at 200 billion tons even if it were a cube it would weigh over 6000 tons per m^3

should that figure be kg's?
look at what we could do 25 years ago..... look at 100 years ago, we're in the elbow the technological J curve, 25 years from now, they will make it do a soft landing and mine the precious metals from it lol 


Even now we could blow it out of the sky, so again... 25 years from now, either weve already fubared everything or it will be a cake walk....

The singularity is near.....
Why does every English article have to be f***ed up with idiotic miles and all the historic crap? At the end you just screw up everything. Seems rather pointless. Try to keep up with the rest of the world, 95% to be accurate, and get a grip on the metric system, PLEASE!
http://www.metric4us.com/
320 meters diameter => 160 meters radius

volume = 4/3 * pi * r**3
volume ~ 17.16 million m**3

density of iron: 7874 kg/m**3
go to http://www.allmeasures.com/Formulae/static/materials/17/density.htm which has a dandy calculator for this, and plug in the volume and you get:

mass ~ 135 billion kg or ~ 149 billion tons
You guys should do your homework better:

Initial news reports claimed that NASA confirmed these results with the ESA. But both NASA and the ESA have since denied these claims. On April 15, 2008, a German ESA spokesman told news organizations that "... A small boy did do these calculations, but he made a mistake ... NASA's figures are correct."
oops...
"That's like saying a gnat could knock me from my motorcycle"

If that gnat was travelling at 18,000mph like the satellite, I doubt you'd have a head left. The combined intertia of the mass and speed of the satellite, combined with the altered trajectory of the asteroid over many years could quite easily put it on a collision course with Earth. 30,000KM is a very close call and it would only need a tiny nudge and decades later that 30,000 becomes 10,000 +or- 5000 which means it could impact.
If nothing else it the acticle @ sott.net shows just how the USA has changed from a democratic government to a totalitarian government. The scariest thing is that the citzens of the USA still believe they are a free and democtic people.
The mass sounds a little high for a sphere only 160m radius !