Why Asteroid Panic Is On the Rise

space.com ^ | 08 March 2012 | Natalie Wolchover

[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.

[gogogodzilla]

People are panicing because they “know” that asteroids are where zombies come from.

*SPACE* zombies!!11!!1!!1!!

(All your base are belong to us!)

[dfwgator]

I for one, welcome our new zombie overlords.

[LonePalm]

I have humoroids. It only hurts when I laugh.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[LonePalm]

You change the line of longitude of a geosynchronous satellite by pushing them in or out a few miles. If you push it out, it will move west. If you push it in, it will move east. Then you wait. When it gets to the line of longitude you want, reverse the process.

I used to work for the Joint Satellite Engineering Center.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Free_in_Alabama]

My 92 year old grandmother who is a very Christian woman even has the sense of something is coming. She told me the other day that she worries for us all, meaning her grand and great grand kids. The realization that there is an event on the near horizon that will will change our world is felt by many. She doesn't watch TV but reads all the time. So she is not getting hyped from other sources. I'm very curious if its a global feeling or a local phenomenon.

[MrB]

I’ve found that many don’t want to talk about it.
There’s still a lot of “kook factor” involved in having the feeling that “the end is near”.

For example, I probably wouldn’t discuss this with my employer... :)

[UCANSEE2]

Yeah, except the last one caused the dark ages.

This time, the dark ages are being caused by Obama and Islamism.

[UCANSEE2]

"It's about time they cleaned that place out."

[UCANSEE2]

Thanks for posting the article.

---

“One problem is that the Internet is wide open to anyone to say anything,”

Thank GOD for that (and ALGORE), or I would never have seen this author’s piece.

The reason ‘panic’ is on the rise, is only because ‘awareness’ is on the rise.

Scientists/Nations built Asteroid spotting stations all over the world, very quickly and very quietly. Massive amounts of money were spent to do this. Underground self-sustained living quarters for the ruling elite to hide in are being built.

Is it any wonder the general public would ‘panic’ some, given the actions of the ruling elite?

[presidio9]

I thought the Dark Ages were caused primarily by the collapse of the Roman Empire and the loss its civilizing and cultural influence.

The current liberal interpretation blames the Catholic Church for the Dark Ages.

That works for me if it means we can blame Islam for what it has done and continues to do to Middle Eastern culture.

[Talisker]

"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."

LOL!

Just freekin' LOL!

[Talisker]

Meteor Crater in Arizona was formed by a meteor about 150’ diameter.

Mebbe.

But there are serious impact anomolies if that is so. The buried debris field does not contain the amount or density of heavy metal (iron, etc.) that would have been necessary to create that kind and size of crater.

If, on the other hand, the crater was made by a high-technology explosion, such as a massive nuke or antimatter source, or was made by a big enough particle beam firing down from above, then the lack of metal would make sense.

But of course, everyone knows there was no high technology in the distant past, so that can't be the explanation.

Forbidden Archeology

Ancient Technology - The Top Ten