13 year old, smarter than NASA

[sodakjoe]

Yes, FG, I did see this...about 12 hours before it got posted here early in the morning (around 1 a.m.) last night (And I knew it was phony when the refutation got posted on NASAWatch at around 6-7 a.m. when I woke up). I got suspicious and checked it out, the red flags really came up when I read this on JPL's web site:

Indicating that yes, they did look at collision probability. Besides, the fact that it's inclination is 40 degrees makes it obscenely unlikely that there's a collision.

The article was littered with fishy facts, like "40,000 satellites" (probably true, but most of those are in LEO, nowhere near a geostationary orbit). Honestly, my first thought was "First of all, HOW and secondly WHY does a 13 year-old have access to every satellite's orbital elements - particularly the ones in GEO (mostly spy and communication satellites)?" This is what you get when the world news picks up a story in the German equivalent of the National Enquirer....

And yes, 1 in 450 would be an alarming number. Not as alarming as when they first found Apophis (odds were 1 in 233), and especially not as alarming as the maximum number (1 in 37) they got while observing it.

I'm not an expert on NEO's, but something like a satellite hitting Apophis would have a significant impact, because it's so close to the Earth the system is really sensitive - small pertubations can significantly change the orbit.

On a related note, I've attached the scale of the Apophis pass on April 13, 2029.

Alright, someone who knows what they're talking about!

My AerE 464 group is studying this for our semester project. The odds of the asteroid colliding in 2029 are not that good, but it will pass within GEO, and the perturbations caused by Earth on this pass could make it much more likely it hits us on its next pass, in 2036.

[jdoggivjc]

Depends if it was with a candy-striper or not.

Named Jennifer, Bambi, or Cinnamon?

Personally, I'd like to be just finished. Wouldn't want to be frustrated for eternity...

[bos]

LOL, well score one for NASA!

[TxCycloneFan]

...you put a man on the moon, you're geniuses!...

did they?

[jdoggivjc]

did they?

Please tell me you're not one of those "Hollywood Basement" believers...

[Stumpy]

Anybody want to put up a CyBookie event for Apophis striking the Earth?

Personally, I'm going all in on "Apophis does not strike Earth." As much as I hate losing credits, dying would take the relative edge off of it.

Oh, and Brianhos has to put credits on "Apophis does strike Earth," otherwise we're boned.

[mramseyISU]

Apophis? Didn't SG-1 already kill him?

[Phaedrus]

If we get creamed by an asteroid, this is really going to tick off the human caused climate change folks....