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.
“If it lands in the Pacific, who will notice?”
Perhaps the people in the countries who get hit with the tsunami or tsunamis.
Scientists aren’t especially worried about this asteroid’s trajectory in February, 2013, but it will be back in the year 2020. Some scientists are concerned that it will come even closer to Earth in 2020, perhaps close enough to hit our planet. Time will tell.....
Humans really like the end of the world. I think it feeds our procrastinator instinct, why do today if the world will be destroyed tomorrow.
I thought the Dark Ages were caused primarily by the collapse of the Roman Empire and the loss its civilizing and cultural influence.
I believe they would keep it top secret if they did see a big one headed our way.
Excellent point, and they would likely attempt that if they could, however they would have a problem, as there are thousands of Amateur Astronomers today, who do their own research/observations who have access to fairly sophisticated equipment and access to the Internet.
In the event of a major pending event, would they attempt to discredit them, for the good of all?
I don't know.
I visited Meteor Crater back in 1974, when I was rather young. It is VERY impressive.
A meteor only 80 feet in diameter created this crater.
It hit what is now northern Arizona anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 years ago. Diamonds were formed instantly, and everything within a 100 mile radius was incinerated. Of course, this was long before any Indians were in the Southwest. It would be a long time after this impact before the ancestors of the Indians crossed over from Asia to Alaska via the land bridge now known as the Aleutian Islands.
The crater is 60 stories deep and about one mile in width.
I climbed part of the way down into the crater when I visited. From what I remember, I heard that Apollo astronauts trained at this crater before their moon missions.
Cousin Eddie ?
Space.com is usually pretty accurate. They may be referring to semi synchronous orbit, which is 2 orbits per day, about 12,500 miles altitude. The GPS satellites use it.
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.
Well, Natalie, to be even more precise, in the real world probabilities are never zero and I doubt NASA said that.
Some people like to "Blow off" the possibility of a big event, but they forget or fail to realize the earth, during the course of it's history, has been hit multiple times causing earth changing, cataclysmic impacts.
And it will happen again.
What did the Mayans know, and when did they know it?
....or MUCH worse. (they better keep away from small aircraft, restaurants, shooting ranges, and hot tubs)
Yes and no - Rome collapsed, got sacked by the Gauls, etc., then a storm of astoriods hit, bombed everybody in Europe back to the stone age, then...
It was a busy place.
But look at the bright side - our ancestors survived it!
Whoo-hoo - our team won!
Right, I spoke a little too soon. I was thinking on the order of a few kiloton equivalent, but apparently it’s in the few megatons instead. Not earth threatening, but not gentle as a lamb, either.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.