They’re scientists, after all, which means they’re never wrong, so ignorant laymen like us should have complete confidence in their judgment:
Anyone happening to glance towards the heavens in a week’s time and glimpses a 50-metre-long lump of rock hurtling ominously through the skies need not panic.
Although it will pass closer to us than any asteroid has for the past 15 years — closer even than the TV satellites that girdle the planet — Nasa insists that 2012 DA14 will miss Earth by a good 17,100 miles (27,520km).
“No Earth impact is possible,” said Donald Yeomans, an astronomer with the US space agency.
In other words: PANIC! It’s going to destroy us all!
Sweet meteor of death!
Also, first.
Quick…give me a charity to donate my life savings to..stat!
How about an impact pool?
I’ll put $100 on Washington, DC, and $50 on Tehran.
Well, it’s not like their getting a government grant to study the asteroid. Otherwise I’d be worried.
Plus the science here is MATH. Now I know math is hard for some of those of the liberal bent (and I do mean bent) but calculus and orbital mechanics have been with us for a while and they manage to 99.9999% of the time to put objects where they want them in the solar system and in earth orbit.
So I’m going to accept that SMOD will give us a pass.
THIS TIME.
Because the Gods like a good joke now and then also, I’m going to stay awake for awhile. Just in case.
The Blogfather is watching this situation.
What does Nate Silver say?
My two favorite asteroid impact locations:
79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, Mass.
and
620 8th Avenue New York, NY
Good thing Barack diverted all of that money so NASA could focus on Muslim outreach instead of messy, old math and data collection.
But will it make my health care cheaper?
Yes if it hits.
A lot of my coworkers at Goddard Space Flight Center are taking Friday the 15th off. They say it’s to get a four day weekend with the President’s Day holiday on Monday.
Yeah, that’s got to be it.
I’d be more worried if the closest approach was on a Tuesdae. Or if it was partly named for the heir to a soap fortune.
Well…we do have a Morgan Freeman-wannabe as President.
…and I feel fine….
Tuesdae? That’s like the 2nd day after Sundae? [snort]
If it hadn’t been for the astrophysics geeks, we’d have never even known it was there.
So if we aren’t to believe them, it is more likely to be correct that the asteroid won’t get anywhere near us than that it would impact, since impact requires a very specific trajectory with near zero tolerance for error at this point, and missing is just everything else.
Would that come with nuts and whipped cream?
Someone’s been reading old Niven …
Wait… You said it could hit a TV satellite? *panic rising*
[…] But do not worry about that. The scientific community say it is much ado about nothing, Stacy McCain, however………… […]
I hope he wasn’t saying “faster, please” to the asteroid.
Already started putting plastic-wrapped books in the old, now-disconnected septic tank.
Don’t forget to buy up all the cheap, plastic ponchos you can get.
Dick Morris predicts a landfall.
It makes perfect sense not to worry about something you can do nothing about.
Shave the dolphins left? Has anyone found a note saying ‘thanks for all the fish’
I’m fairly certain that the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, and I am a noted astronomist.
Not a note, but they did leave a Youtube video.
The odds of it getting here by itself are a damn sight better than NASA sending somebody to get it and bring it back.
In astronomical terms, 17,000 miles is the equivalent of having your head shaved. We take this whole problem too casually.