Smart kid (13) corrects NASA, paints dismal picture. - Political Forum

FRYandBENDER · 04-16-2008, 08:40 AM

Quote:

German schoolboy, 13, corrects NASA's asteroid figures: paper

Tue Apr 15, 5:44 PM ET

BERLIN (AFP) - A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated.
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Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported.

NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right.

The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.

German schoolboy, 13, corrects NASA's asteroid figures: paper - Yahoo! News

I thought this was pretty interesting. Anyone here know a little more about this asteroid? 1 in 450 isn't very reassuring. Can someone call Ben Affleck please?

Kazikli Bey · 04-16-2008, 09:43 AM

Hey, and Bruce Willis

, and of course, Steve Buscemi

I wonder what sort of destruction this asteroid will cause if it did hit. More importantly, where is it most likely to hit?

FRYandBENDER · 04-16-2008, 10:14 AM

The rest of the article says that it would hit in the Atlantic and send tidal waves far inland and send dust and debris into the air. Pretty bleak picture.

Doctor Webley · 04-16-2008, 04:12 PM

From "The Register".
Looks like the kid was wrong.

Widespread media reports claim that a German schoolboy has recalculated the likelihood of a deadly planet-smasher asteroid hitting the Earth, and found the catastrophe is enormously more likely than NASA thought. The boy's sums were said to have been checked by both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), and found to be correct.

There's only one problem with the story: the kid's sums are in fact wrong, NASA's are right, and the ESA swear blind they never said any different. An ESA spokesman in Germany told the Reg this morning: "A small boy did do these calculations, but he made a mistake... NASA's figures are correct."

It would appear that the intial article in the Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten, which says that NASA and the ESA endorsed Nico Marquardt's calculations, was incorrect. The story was picked up by German tabloids and the AFP news wire, and is now all over the internet.

Marquardt apparently reckoned that the odds of the well-known Apophis asteroid hitting Earth were not one in 45,000 as assessed by NASA, but rather one in 450. Apophis will pass close by Earth in 2029 and 2036, so close that it will come nearer than satellites in geostationary orbit.

It seems that Marquardt's calculations included the possibility of collision with a satellite in some way not thought to have been covered by NASA, which bumped up the odds of a subsequent Earth strike. But NASA says:

[The asteroid will pass] within the distance of Earth's geosynchronous satellites. However, because Apophis will pass interior to the positions of these satellites at closest approach, in a plane inclined at 40 degrees to the Earth's equator and passing outside the equatorial geosynchronous zone when crossing the equatorial plane, it does not threaten the satellites in that heavily populated region.

FRYandBENDER · 04-17-2008, 09:12 AM

Wow, that was quick. Good news I guess.

nemesis · 04-17-2008, 01:28 PM

What a relief. I believe Apophis is the name of a minor Egyptian death god. Something do with funerals and mummification. If it were to hit it would be ironic although I guess they probably had a reason for naming it that.

BullMoose · 04-25-2008, 11:38 PM

Haha that's certainly good news. Still, that kid is heading somewhere... if I were NASA I'd be watching him pretty closely.

Diligent_d · 04-26-2008, 01:35 PM

Goddamn asteroids.