WP,pg1: Science's Doomsday Team vs. the Asteroids

[DeepModem Mom]

Science's Doomsday Team vs. the Asteroids

By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 9, 2005; Page A01


Astronomer David Tholen spotted it last year in the early evening of June 19, using the University of Arizona's Bok telescope. It was a new "near-Earth object," a fugitive asteroid wandering through space to pass close to Earth.

Tholen's team took three pictures that night and three the next night, but storm clouds and the moon blocked further observations. They reported their fixes to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., and moved on.

Six months later, Tholen's object was spotted again in Australia as asteroid "2004 MN4." In the space of five days straddling Christmas, startled astronomers refined their calculations as the probability of the 1,000-foot-wide stone missile hitting Earth rose from one chance in 170 to one in 38.

They had never measured anything as potentially dangerous to Earth. Impact would come on Friday the 13th in April 2029.

The holidays and the tsunami in South Asia pushed 2004 MN4 out of the news, and in the meantime additional observations showed that the asteroid would miss, but only by 15,000 to 25,000 miles -- about one-tenth the distance to the moon. Asteroid 2004 MN4 was no false alarm. Instead, it has provided the world with the best evidence yet that a catastrophic encounter with a rogue visitor from space is not only possible but probably inevitable....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38306-2005Apr8?language=printer


ON EDIT, adding graphic:

[whistle]

1. At the end of the article it says...

<snip>

They were. On Dec. 27, Spacewatch astronomers Jeffrey Larsen and Anne Descour found 2004 MN4 in a series of images taken March 15, more than three months before Tholen's sighting. They passed the word to JPL, which issued a news bulletin: "An Earth impact on 13 April 2029 can now be ruled out."

Since then, astronomers have continued to observe 2004 MN4 whenever possible, but most of the time it is obscured.

"It would be awfully nice to have information so we don't get surprised," said Schweickart, who advocates flying a small interceptor mission to plant a transponder on 2004 MN4 that would constantly radio its location, tagging it like a grizzly bear. "Our favorite little asteroid might provide enough reality here to provoke people. Maybe we should get serious."

<end>

[Selteri]

2. I agree with that assessment,

putting a tag on it and making sure people understand that we have already found an asteroid with our name on it, 800 years into the future. Why can't there be one sooner, we need to start being proactive or we won't survive is a bit of an understatement.

[Boomer]

3. Probably? Probably?

>> Instead, it has provided the world with the best evidence yet that a catastrophic encounter with a rogue visitor from space is not only possible but probably inevitable.... <<

The only question is whether or not it will happen in my lifetime (probably not). But it WILL happen eventually. We live in a cosmic shooting gallery, so it's only a matter of time. There's a lot of time in eternity.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

4. You forgot...

In the bottom of a gravity well in a cosmic shooting gallery.

[MisterP]

5. effects calculator (no tsunami numbers, though)

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

[Baclava]

6. Where have I seen this before....

[puerco-bellies]

9. LOL.. memories...

[Writer]

7. That's no asteroid!

It's JESUS riding his chariot heralding his SECOND COMING!

Everyone - down on your knees! Repent - repent now!

:nuke:

[w4rma]

8. Do ya' feel lucky, punks? How about a game of Russian roulette with a

single very very large bullet within a 38 chamber gun?