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.

FMI: www.nasa.gov