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Asteroid on collision course with the earth
stairway
Posts: 1,500 Forum Member
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/asteroid-size-statue-liberty-on-5515171
Calling International Rescue!!!
Calling International Rescue!!!
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Look at the number above;
It was a million to one that I would just write that particular one down (between 1 and 1,000,000) and yet I did it.
Those odds and longer come up week in week out in various circumstances.
Hmmmm, what if it is the actual statue of liberty - coming at us in some strange time warp?
I thought that was compulsory for asteroids and comets. Maybe the damn thing is attracting them!
Could be maybe it was that what blew it and the world up. Then the apes evolved rather than nuclear war. Taylor was cursing the wrong people they were not maniacs at all.
I hope not. There'll be innocent people over there, as well as the IS morons.
Phew!
I was afraid it was going to be 358,271!
Or even worse:
7,189,873,285,236,875,486,157,147,842,549,563,935,965,984,128,431,425,926,183,583,189,765,183,138,534,730,093,263
Odds of a million to one against might well come in week in week out if there are millions of events that might potentially happen - but they fail to come up much more often.
How much is that in double-decker units? We're British, dammit!
Sadly that’s not a realistic option;
They both died during a previous ill-fated attempt to divert an asteroid.
But they died so we could live!
* Corporal Nobbs? I can't remember who said it but there was definitely someone standing on one leg wearing a blindfold and about to shoot an arrow and I suspect even the gargoyles had taken cover
Damned cunning those French!
There will be an uncertainty band on the calculations, but provided the estimated closet approach is so big enough, such that even allowing for calculational uncertainty, it will miss the Earth, then statements such as a 1 in 1 million chance have no meaning and are just typical press type statements.
So either the asteroid will pass so far away there is no chance, or it is passing so close that there is a realistic chance of colliding which can be reasonably well calculated.
On the grounds we are are not hearing anything to the contrary, I assume there is no chance. (Of course, conspiracy theorists might say we are not being told the truth).
Do you mean the asteroid, or the large blank area in your post #15 ?
The problem would be the confidence with which its position and trajectory are known. It will be fairly well known in what direction the object is, and how quickly that direction is changing, but there'll be a certain amount of guesswork at first exactly how far away the object is. Roughly how far away can be estimated, and the closer the object is the greater the accuracy with which that distance can be fixed. Calculations based on an initial estimate will most likely produce a range of values for the closest approach to Earth. If that range is, say, 1,000,000 - 2,000,000 miles, then all is well. If it's 500,000 miles on one side to 500,000 miles on the other side, then there is a chance of being hit. Given that on that kind of scale, the Earth is still a fairly small target (even allowing for the fact that we're at the bottom of a gravity well), then it's not a very big chance,
I suppose that you could do some statistical calculations and come up with a number for the probability that the combination of position and trajectory is one that will lead to impact with the Earth, but I'd agree with you that statements like "one in a million" are shorthand for "very, very unlikely"
Long odds? If it's a 1/1.000 (i.e. 1/1) it's an absolute certainty!
Surprised this hasn't been covered in the papers...