German schoolboy, 13, corrects NASA's asteroid figures

[Julian Delphiki]

BERLIN (AFP) — A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated.

Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported.

NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right.

The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.

Those satellites travel at 3.07 kilometres a second (1.9 miles), at up to 35,880 kilometres above earth -- and the Apophis asteroid will pass by earth at a distance of 32,500 kilometres.

If the asteroid strikes a satellite in 2029, that will change its trajectory making it hit earth on its next orbit in 2036.

Both NASA and Marquardt agree that if the asteroid does collide with earth, it will create a ball of iron and iridium 320 metres (1049 feet) wide and weighing 200 billion tonnes, which will crash into the Atlantic Ocean.
The shockwaves from that would create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely.

The 13-year old made his discovery as part of a regional science competition for which he submitted a project entitled: "Apophis -- The Killer Astroid."

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g6fIS_34_CxE8-vcC5GvbjD4MIOQ

Damn smartass kid!

1 in 450 .. should we worry?

 

[holy king]

1 in 450 .. should we worry?

that's "highly improbable" but i wouldnt call it "almost impossible"...

 

[Julian Delphiki]

We need to clone Bruce Willis.

 

[brennan]

I'd much rather we cloned Liv Tyler...

 

[J-man]

I'd much rather we cloned Liv Tyler...

Yes! one Liv Tyler for us all

 

[raketooy]

We need to clone Bruce Willis.

Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Jack Bauer and McGyver. Then all we have to take care of is that they won't get into a fight with each other. That'd be more dangerous than an asteroid hitting Earth.

 

[Cutlass]

There's no point in worrying about something we can do nothing about.

 

[superslug]

A satellite collision can change the trajectory of an asteroid?
That rock should be easy to deflect away then, right?

 

[zxcvbnm]

There's no point in worrying about something we can do nothing about.

Yes we can. And we must prepare for it.

A satellite collision can change the trajectory of an asteroid?
That rock should be easy to deflect away then, right?

Sadly not that easy. It's the Earth's gravity which causes some problems but by pulling it with a space tractor or diverting its course with our countless nukes would work.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Meh.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/esa_german_schoolboy_apophis_denial/

Widespread media reports claim that a German schoolboy has recalculated the likelihood of a deadly planet-smasher asteroid hitting the Earth, and found the catastrophe is enormously more likely than NASA thought. The boy's sums were said to have been checked by both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), and found to be correct.

There's only one problem with the story: the kid's sums are in fact wrong, NASA's are right, and the ESA swear blind they never said any different. An ESA spokesman in Germany told the Reg this morning: "A small boy did do these calculations, but he made a mistake... NASA's figures are correct."

It would appear that the intial article in the Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten, which says that NASA and the ESA endorsed Nico Marquardt's calculations, was incorrect. The story was picked up by German tabloids and the AFP news wire, and is now all over the internet.

Marquardt apparently reckoned that the odds of the well-known Apophis asteroid hitting Earth were not one in 45,000 as assessed by NASA, but rather one in 450. Apophis will pass close by Earth in 2029 and 2036, so close that it will come nearer than satellites in geostationary orbit.

It seems that Marquardt's calculations included the possibility of collision with a satellite in some way not thought to have been covered by NASA, which bumped up the odds of a subsequent Earth strike. But NASA says:

[The asteroid will pass] within the distance of Earth's geosynchronous satellites. However, because Apophis will pass interior to the positions of these satellites at closest approach, in a plane inclined at 40 degrees to the Earth's equator and passing outside the equatorial geosynchronous zone when crossing the equatorial plane, it does not threaten the satellites in that heavily populated region.

All in all, it seems there's no need to dust off the asteroid-busting space nukes just yet. ®

We still should clone Liv Tyler.

 

[Honkoid]

edit: forget about that post

 

[dwaxe]

Where's a good Superman movie based on this asteroid?

We need one!

 

[brennan]

No, what we need is cloned Liv Tylers. Lots of them.

 

[-Tomasz-]

We could always try to crash the Moon into Apophis. We could already start selling tickets for the viewing event

 

[Perfection]

Maybe it would be easier to crash Apophis into the Moon, the moon being flippin' huge and all.

 

[Metal Alloy Man]

No, what we need is cloned Liv Tylers. Lots of them.

Totally agree!

By the way, shouldn't we just nuke the thing so that it changes course? I know, we can build a giant laser on the moon and slowly destroy it!

 

[-Tomasz-]

Maybe it would be easier to crash Apophis into the Moon, the moon being flippin' huge and all.

Well, the Moon belongs to the Earth-Moon system, so legally speaking, it is owned by us. If you suddenly would want to crash Apophis into the Moon, you would force Apophis to do what it doesn't want to, and we would jeoperdise its souverainty. We'd have a ton of problems including space lawyers and all that. On the other hand we own the Moon, so we can do whatever we want to with it

 

[raketooy]

Well, the Moon belongs to the Earth-Moon system, so legally speaking, it is owned by us. If you suddenly would want to crash Apophis into the Moon, you would force Apophis to do what it doesn't want to, and we would jeoperdise its souverainty. We'd have a ton of problems including space lawyers and all that. On the other hand we own the Moon, so we can do whatever we want to with it

But Apophis will claim that the Moon crashed into it and sue the living hell outta us, who own the Moon.

 

[TheDS]

Not if Apophis gets completely obliterated. Dead things can't sue.

 

[History_Buff]

There's no point in worrying about something we can do nothing about.

Or we could adjust the positions of the satellites We already do it for solar flares IIRC. And quite frankly, I can do without a good GPS fix for a few days if it means I'm not facing near certain death in 2036.