Comments on: Mars now has 96% chance of nothing happening

By: planettom

planettom — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:05:06 +0000

So has anyone managed an image of the asteroid AFTER it passed Mars?

Mind you, I’m not expecting a DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN, but the only recent article I can find is a space.com article (”Asteroid misses Mars, barely”) which was posted… 18 minutes before the asteroid made its closest approach to Mars.

By: Astroprof’s Page » 2007 WD5

Astroprof’s Page » 2007 WD5 — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:39:51 +0000

[...] harmlessly past Mars, albeit very close to the planet. A few bloggers, such as Phil, did in fact stress the low probability of an impact, even at its most probable. Since he had already posted about that, and a lot of my [...]

By: Seed's Daily Zeitgeist: 1/2/2008 - General Science

Seed's Daily Zeitgeist: 1/2/2008 - General Science — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:39:10 +0000

[...] Mars now has 96% chance of nothing happening That 4 percent possibility could be awfully cool… [...]

By: JimC

JimC — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:45:42 +0000

The odds WD5 hitting Mars are very low but they aren’t zero. In fact, people play roulette and the lottery with much lower odds.

It will be interesting to see just how close it gets. If it actually does hit, just imagine the information to be gleaned. The imaging systems we have orbiting Mars could get huge amounts of data on subsurface Mars. Astronomers with an interest in Mars should cross their fingers and hope that it does strike the surface.

And don’t discount the coolness factor of the big boom when it hits.

By: Hank Roberts

Hank Roberts — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:33:18 +0000

Will any of the Mars orbiting cameras be trying to get images of this rock? I imagine that might get the best data on it — close vantage point, no atmosphere, presumably the platforms’ location is precisely tracked.

Where in the sky is this rock coming from, on its approach to Mars? In plane, overtaking, cometary? Do we have even an approximation of its past?

By: The Centipede

The Centipede — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:13:31 +0000

> Yeah, I’d like to see it happen for scientific reasons.

I’d like to see the rock hit because I LOVE EXPLOSIONS.

BOOM, BABY, BOOM!

THAT’S FOR THE THUNDERCHILD, SLOBBERING LANDSQUIDS!

> However ludicrously small, there must be some chance that it’ll miss Mars by the smallest margin, and hit a spot just right to singshot it towards us, right?

N-body motion is chaotic (mathematically, not philosophically). It could miss Mars and be nudged into just the right path to hit us in a million or a billion years. The chance of it becoming a DOOM ROCK FROM MARS are a million to one.

But still, they come…

By: Schmoo

Schmoo — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:05:58 +0000

However ludicrously small, there must be some chance that it’ll miss Mars by the smallest margin, and hit a spot just right to singshot it towards us, right? Or would that spot be so close to the surface that the atmosphere would interfere? Or something else along those lines that makes it impossible?

Just out of interest, I monger no doom