Mon, Dec 27, 2004
Something Wicked This Way Comes?
From NASA:
It's never been a
question of "if" so much as "when." Now, we may have an answer.
That's the word from NASA on the possibility that a large
asteroid could impact the Earth in a little more than 24 years.
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 percent,
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 percent chance that new data in the coming days, weeks, and
months will rule out any possibility of impact in 2029.
With a half-dozen or so other asteroid discoveries dating back
to 1997, scientists had announced long odds of an impact --
generating frightening headlines in some cases -- only to announce
within hours or days that the impact chances had been reduced to
zero by further observations. Experts have said repeatedly that
they are concerned about alarming the public before enough data is
gathered to project an asteroid's path accurately.
Asteroid 2004 MN4 is an unusual case in that follow-up
observations have caused the risk assessment to climb -- from
Torino level 2 to 4 --rather than fall.
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