The asteroid threat in 2029

http://space.com/sci...isk_041224.html

Asteroid With Chance of Hitting Earth in 2029 Now Being Watched 'Very Carefully'

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 24 December 2004
09:58 am ET


Update, Dec. 25, 9:47 p.m. ET: The risk of an impact by asteroid 2004 MN4 went up slightly on Saturday, Dec. 25. It is now pegged at having a 1-in -45 chance of striking the planet on April 13, 2029. That's up from 1-in-63 late on Dec. 24, and 1-in-300 early on Dec. 24.

Astronomers still stress that it is very likely the risk will be reduced to zero with further observations. And even as it stands with present knowledge, the chances are 97.8 percent the rock will miss Earth.

Yeah I have been thinking of posting this one too, but I was waiting till a little more data came in as well as wanting to point out that another one got past our radar without being seen until too late. Some early warning system we have here.

http://story.news.ya...ellitesandearth

Also in light of over twenty thousand dead and a million displaced persons by yesterdays' tsunami in the Indian Ocean I think this one deserves an honorable mention in the threat to life category.

December 25, 2004 - 08:26 PM
Jared Diamond: Collapse

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
by Jared Diamond
http://www.amazon.co...5270384-3948619

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In his Pulitzer Prize –winning bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, geographer Diamond laid out a grand view of the organic roots of human civilizations in flora, fauna, climate and geology. That vision takes on apocalyptic overtones in this fascinating comparative study of societies that have, sometimes fatally, undermined their own ecological foundations. Diamond examines storied examples of human economic and social collapse, and even extinction, including Easter Island, classical Mayan civilization and the Greenland Norse. He explores patterns of population growth, overfarming, overgrazing and overhunting, often abetted by drought, cold, rigid social mores and warfare, that lead inexorably to vicious circles of deforestation, erosion and starvation prompted by the disappearance of plant and animal food sources. Extending his treatment to contemporary environmental trouble spots, from Montana to China to Australia, he finds today's global, technologically advanced civilization very far from solving the problems that plagued primitive, isolated communities in the remote past. At times Diamond comes close to a counsel of despair when contemplating the environmental havoc engulfing our rapidly industrializing planet, but he holds out hope at examples of sustainability from highland New Guinea's age-old but highly diverse and efficient agriculture to Japan's rigorous program of forest protection and, less convincingly, in recent green consumerism initiatives. Diamond is a brilliant expositor of everything from anthropology to zoology, providing a lucid background of scientific lore to support a stimulating, incisive historical account of these many declines and falls. Readers will find his book an enthralling, and disturbing, reminder of the indissoluble links that bind humans to nature. Photos.
Copyright ©Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description:

In his million-copy bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. Now in this brilliant companion volume, Diamond probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates?

As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe. Environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of these societies, but other societies found solutions and persisted. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society ’s apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana.

Brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing, Collapse is destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?

Merry xmas everbody now there is a real stocking stuffer [wis]

And this was why I was waiting. They say it is no longer a threat.
http://neo.jpl.nasa....ws/news148.html

Advertisements help to support the work of this non-profit organisation. [] To go ad-free join as a Member.

Update: It will pass so close to earth in 2029 that, without further study, we can't predict it's trajectory after 2029:

http://www.timesonli...1573790,00.html

A HUGE asteroid which is on a course to miss the Earth by a whisker in 2029 could go round its orbit again and score a direct hit a few years later.

Astronomers have calculated that the 1,000ft-wide asteroid called 2004 MN4 will pass by the Earth at a distance of between 15,000 and 25,000 miles—about a tenth of the distance between the Earth and the Moon and close enough to be seen with the naked eye.

Although they are sure that it will miss us, they are worried about the disturbance that such a close pass will give to the asteroid’s orbit. It might put 2004 MN4 on course for a collision in 2034 or a year or two later: the unpredictability of its behaviour means that the danger might not become apparent until it is too late.

The difference between 1,025,000km and 1,040,000km, from a gravitational perspective, is quite small, so a flyby that close wouldn't have much impact on subsequent predictions (pun intended).

But the difference between 25,000km and 40,000km is anything but small. Hence the unpredictability of the new course after the 2029 flyby.

It's worth noting that there's a chance the asteroid could pass within the orbit of geostationary satellites, putting it "within man's reach", so to speak (that was my quote, in case you're looking for it in the article).