Asteroid Apophis, a hunk of rock a few hundred meters across, will pass so close to the Earth in 2029 that it will actually be below many of our satellites.
Got your attention?
OK, so maybe you’ve heard of Apophis. There’s the usual doomcries about it, of course. It won’t hit us on 2029, but depending on exactly how close it gets (these things are hard to tell with enough precision so far in advance) it may hit us on its next pass, in 2036. The odds are really low, like 1 in 45,000 as it stands now (better observations may move that up or down).
Should you be scared?
I’m not. 1 in 45,000 are long odds. It’s roughly the same odds as flipping a coin 15 times and having it come up heads every time. Ever had that happen to you? No? There you go.
The odds of dying in a car accident are 1 in 6000, a bit higher than the odds of Apophis ruining our day. That’s high enough, with a severe enough outcome, that it’s wise to take precautions when you’re in a car. Look around before making a turn. Wear your seat belt. Turn the damn cell phone off while driving (you’ve very likely to die in this manner, as someone might shoot you for being such an idiot). It just makes sense to make at least a minimal amount of preparation, given that you spend a lot of time on the road, and the odds are not that small. We all know someone who was hurt in an accident.
So it makes sense to prepare for an asteroid impact. The Earth spends all its time on the road, and while asteroids may not make cell phone calls, they’ll definitely call on us someday. So it just makes sense to take some precautions.
The comic strip User Friendly has been on this as well:
I haven’t seen too many images yet (just one cool one of my boy, the Spot, over at the New Horizons site). There will be plenty to look at in the coming day or two, I’m sure!
I am terrified at the thought of riding in a rocket, but after seeing this video I’m considering getting a ticket.
This rocks, it totally rocks. It’s very realistic (though it doesn’t show passengers puking or panicking), and advertising like this might make a lot of people change their minds about commercial spaceflight.
Note to Richard Branson: put a cabin in the back of SS2 that is big enough for two people (say, three meters across) with lots of windows, and make sure there are plenty of brackets, bungee cords, and cushioning on all six walls (a clock counting down to the return to weight might prove useful as well, but play that as it goes). Charge three times the standard fare. You’ll make a lot more money, guaranteed.
Carl Sagan wrote some of the most beautiful and important words ever set in English. His short essay, "Reflections on a Mote of Dust" from Pale Blue Dot should be required reading of every human on this planet. His reasoning, his timing, his cadence, his choice of words, his phrasing… they’re all perfect. Not one word should be changed. It inspired my own essay "Science Fare", in fact.
My friend Rob Knop has joined the Science Blog collective with Galactic Interactions. He’s an astronomer, and has the bona fides for it (more than I do, too; he’s an actual professor and everything). If you want a taste of what he does, try this essay about gravity on for size. This is a complicated aspect of physics he’s tackled, and he does it really well.
I’ve already added him to my blog reader, and to my blogroll.
CNN.com (which occasionally gets things right) is reporting that a recent hailstorm has damaged the external tank and one wing of the Space Shuttle, and NASA will delay the flight by one month.
As you may recall, the external tank is covered with insulating foam, and it was a small piece falling off which damaged the Shuttle Columbia, causing it to disintegrate upon re-entry. Obviously, NASA takes damage to the tank very seriously.
I don’t know what this will mean to the overall schedule, or to the Hubble servicing mission scheduled for next September.
Oh– note to any NASA HQ people reading this blog: having the center web pages redirect to the NASA main portal is irritating but understandable. But why does http://www.ksc.nasa.gov redirect, but http://ksc.nasa.gov gives a "Server not found" error? The same is true for msfc and gsfc, by the way. Did someone not want to spend the money on the extra domain name? It’s not hard to get that set up on the server; see what happens when you use http://badastronomy.com. If I can do it, I bet NASA can too.
Don’t forget, the New Horizons probe, on its way to Pluto, has a close encounter with Jupiter tomorrow! Ian Musgrave has some details, and Emily will be on it as well– she already has up a WAY cool animation showing volcanic eruptions on Jupiter’s moon Io as seen by NH.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
"If things worked the way I wanted them to, any reporter about to do another 'sensational' story on deadly meteors would consult this volume, and bang! common sense would find its way into the news. How strange would that world be?" -- Adam Savage, Mythbusters
"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating." -- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
It’s not hard to get that set up on the server; see what happens when you use 
