It’s time to play “compare the headline with the content!”
Headline:
NASA asteroid DANGER: A 2,700 MEGATON asteroid might hit Earth this October
Content:
There is a small chance – about one in 11,000,000 – Asteroid FT3 will crash into us in the next three months.
The odds of impact translate into a 0.0000092% chance of cataclysm or a 99.9999908% chance the asteroid will miss Earth.
This merits “DANGER” I guess. By that measure, I guess I’m at risk of my books getting picked up by a publisher AND of becoming every bits as popular and rich as J.K. Rowling. Which I guess means I’m also at risk of eventually posting tweets like “No, really, Nyarlathotep was gay the whole time!”
All that said, asteroid 2007 FT3 seems an interesting prospect. Obviously an Earth-crosser, it is a not inconsiderable chunk of stuff at 340 meters in diameter with a mass of 5.5e+10 kg. There are several very good reasons to go pay it a visit:
- Pure science
- Mining, either for preliminary experiments or actual practice
- Nuke it. Use it as a testing ground for Orion-style propulsive pulse units. This could be for pure science, to test the pulse units, to see how asteroids structurally respond, to see how efficiently the pulse mechanically couples to the target, to actually blast it into flinders for further science. Or it could be for practical purpose, for diverting the asteroid into high Earth or Lunar orbit, or perhaps for plowing it directly into a lunar impact. Why would anyone do the latter? Because it’s awesome, that’s why.
| Date (yyyy-mm-dd.dd) |
Distance (rEarth) |
Width (rEarth) |
Sigma Impact |
Sigma LOV |
Stretch LOV (rEarth) |
Impact Probability |
Impact Energy (Mt) |
Palermo Scale |
Torino Scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-10-03.93 | 65.92 | 4.67e+1 | 1.390 | -0.52688 | 3.75e+4 | 9.2e-8 | 2.670e+03 | -3.17 | 0 |
| 2024-10-02.85 | 52.12 | 4.74e+1 | 1.079 | -0.82761 | 5.48e+4 | 7.5e-8 | 2.724e+03 | -3.73 | 0 |
| 2025-10-03.64 | 134.19 | 4.71e+1 | 2.826 | -0.34668 | 5.39e+4 | 3.2e-9 | 2.637e+03 | -5.16 | 0 |
| 2029-10-02.90 | 125.36 | 4.56e+1 | 2.727 | -1.03451 | 1.21e+6 | 1.2e-10 | 2.762e+03 | -6.74 | 0 |
| 2030-10-03.62 | 36.39 | 4.77e+1 | 0.742 | -0.60895 | 6.54e+4 | 9.9e-8 | 2.685e+03 | -3.87 | 0 |
| 2030-10-03.69 | 65.61 | 4.61e+1 | 1.403 | -0.52780 | 3.66e+6 | 9.4e-10 | 2.670e+03 | -5.89 | 0 |
| 2030-10-03.69 | 64.55 | 4.74e+1 | 1.341 | -0.53047 | 9.10e+5 | 4.0e-9 | 2.671e+03 | -5.27 | 0 |
| 2031-10-04.25 | 166.23 | 4.73e+1 | 3.491 | -0.25267 | 6.72e+4 | 3.2e-10 | 2.618e+03 | -6.40 | 0 |
| 2034-10-03.10 | 143.27 | 5.24e+1 | 2.715 | -1.07823 | 2.94e+4 | 4.3e-9 | 2.768e+03 | -5.33 | 0 |
| 2034-10-03.12 | 136.19 | 4.12e+1 | 3.279 | -1.05902 | 4.80e+4 | 6.2e-10 | 2.766e+03 | -6.18 | 0 |