Posted on 03/08/2012 1:15:15 PM PST by presidio9
Asteroid 2012 DA14 is making headlines this week, despite the fact that the "incoming" space rock, as it has been described, definitely won't hit Earth.
The 150-foot-wide space rock will pass within 17,000 miles (27,000 kilometers) of us next February. That's nearer than the orbits of some geosynchronous satellites, and the closest shave of a mid-size asteroid ever predicted before the actual flyby has occurred. But even so, NASA assures the world that there is no chance of asteroid 2012 DA14 hitting Earth next year. Zero, zip, zilch.
Why, then, all the terror about this unthreatening space rock? And why the recent doom and gloom about another space rock, the big asteroid 2011 AG5, a football-field-size rock that NASA says will almost certainly not collide with the planet in 2040? Don Yeomans, head of the Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, blames the upsurge in asteroid panic on two main factors.
"One problem is that the Internet is wide open to anyone to say anything," Yeomans told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to SPACE.com. In the past, claims about asteroids were written up by scientists and submitted to peer-reviewed journals, a critical process that "would filter out nonsense," he said. "If something was published, it was reliable."
But today, hundreds of scary blurbs about the latest asteroid get written and posted to blogs and tabloid-like sites before NASA scientists can vet the claim and publish their official, less-terrifying statement regarding the asteroid's trajectory.
"In the case of this asteroid, you get hundreds of hits on the Internet, and in the case of the 2012 [Mayan calendar] business, millions of hits suggesting disaster. And you get a few folks in the media and at NASA who put out the truth. But people go online and see millions about disasters and a few saying 'no disaster' and they think, well, the majority of these say I should be worried," Yeomans said. [When Space Attacks: 6 Craziest Meteor Impacts]
The other half of the problem is that many people do not know how to judge the validity of the pseudo-scientific information they read. "There are millions of people out there who have not been trained in the scientific method, and don't understand that evidence is critical for supporting any new idea — especially any dramatic departure from the current state," he said.
In psychology, this is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. People who lack knowledge in a given area, such as science, are unable to accurately assess their own abilities in that area, and so they aren't aware that they are coming to blatantly false conclusions.
David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University who first characterized the phenomenon, recently explained, "Many people don't have training in science, and so they may very well misunderstand the science. But because they don't have the knowledge to evaluate it, they don't realize how off their evaluations might be."
There is no obvious remedy for the one-two punch of widespread misinformation and a lack of mental tools for evaluating it, but Yeomans said scientists need to do a better job engaging with the public. He and his group regularly address people's fears regarding near-Earth asteroids by making statements and issuing news releases.
"The hope is that people will understand that we are the more trusted sources of information," Yeomans said.
And in the case of 2012 DA14, the information is this: There is zero chance of the asteroid hitting Earth next year. The chance of a collision is slightly higher — 1 in 80,000 — when it swings past in 2020, but radar and optical observations of the space rock during next year's flyby will help the scientists nail down its trajectory, which will in all likelihood reduce the 2020 risk estimate to zero.
There are better things to worry about even than the absolute worst-case scenario. If observations next year show that current estimates are way off and the asteroid and Earth are on track to collide in 2020, then NASA would try to deflect it by bumping it with a space probe sometime before then — a move Yeomans says is doable.
Even if that failed, any Earthbound asteroid has a 70 percent chance of plunging into the ocean, and a much higher chance still of impacting only an ocean or an unoccupied land region.
An asteroid this size strikes Earth every 700 years or so, Yeomans said. Humanity has survived innumerable such events.
I have asteroids, can’t even sit on the toilet, some days.
Or, as per Homer Simpson, "It will burn up in the atmosphere and what's left will be no bigger than a Chihuahua's head."
I can explain this.
There is, indeed, a sense of dread, or foreboding, or a sense of incredible change that most humans are sensing in the world right now, and part of their anxiety is their inability to identify the source of this anxiety.
So, this asteroid “comes along”, and people are unconsciously saying “oh, that’s why I feel this way”.
I have my own theory as to what this “anxious” feeling is coming from.
Maranatha.
Or, as per Homer Simpson, "It will burn up in the atmosphere and what's left will be no bigger than a Chihuahua's head."
Not one of your better efforts.
150 feet across is not even very big. Not dangerous at all unless it lands nearly on top of you. Well, within a mile maybe.
Awareness.
That is all.
Everybody has an off-day once in awhile.
I think it’s the lost souls that have this dread. And rightly so.
There is absolutely no evidence to prove that aliens were NOT at the First Thanksgiving.
“NASA assures the world that there is no chance of asteroid 2012 DA14 hitting Earth next year. Zero, zip, zilch. “
I’m not worried, but an assurance from NASA is like an assurance from Obama, worth nothing.
Did NASA do the calculations in meters of yards?
“An asteroid this size strikes Earth every 700 years or so, Yeomans said. Humanity has survived innumerable such events.
“
Yeah, except the last one caused the dark ages.
I think it's more than that. To me, above and beyond those described by Dunning, there are folks who profit from selling panic on the internet and those who feel much bigger and more important because they peddle nonsense on the internet. And both prey on those described by Dunning.
Ahh, but it will be a particularly energetic Chihuahua ;^)
How about this:
“Don’t have a grandson with a dog collar. Understand that Ron Paul is a jackass.”
So why are people concerned? Because they know NASA is more concerned about faking GW data and Muslim outreach than the hard science for which they were once famous. They simply don't trust NASA, and who can blame them? Duh.
*** The other half of the problem is that many people do not know how to judge the validity of the pseudo-scientific information they read. “There are millions of people out there who have not been trained in the scientific method, and don’t understand that evidence is critical for supporting any new idea — especially any dramatic departure from the current state,” he said. ***
“So, it’s easy for NASA to spew Global Warming Theology as pseudo-science, and we know the public will buy into it!” he continued.
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