Discussion: Simulated Possible Asteroid Impact

[shadowmouse]

Representatives from NASA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the European Space Agency, the U.N., and other international space experts have gathered in College Park, Maryland, this week to do a cosmic fire drill. The premise of this role-play universe begins with an imaginary asteroid called 2019 PDC, which has a 1 in 100 chance of striking Earth in 2027. According to NASA, those odds were selected for this drill because experts worldwide generally agree that that’s the threshold for when we should take collective action.

If you have an interest in these things, it is probably worth looking at the whole article: https://slate.com/technology/2019/05...=recirc_recent. Apologies if this is already under discussion, but if it is then I missed it when I scanned the first two pages.

For added fun, consider one of the related problems that was raised during the exercise:

My favorite question came from an attendee who has clearly seen his share of action movies: “How big would [the asteroid] need to be to pop the cork on Yellowstone?” The scientists onstage didn’t seem to immediately understand his question, so the attendee went on to explain that an impact could destabilize the Wyoming supervolcano. “We have not considered volcanic impacts,” replied one of the scientists. “Well,” the attendee said, “maybe it’s something to take a look at.”

I'm too far out of the loop to have much more than an ongoing interest in this, although I suppose that it may well become the scenario for the next big New Year movie here. What are your thoughts on this, particularly given that they're starting to discover how many other things might go wrong?

[Nihilist74]

I think the meteor this is talking about is Apophis. It is supposed to come within 22,000 miles of earth. The moon is about 240,000 miles from earth.
https://www.space.com/asteroid-apoph...y-defense.html
I think it is a big enough asteroid to cause an extinction event.

[PACOX]

I remember hearing about that asteroid since I was like 5. Tired of hearing about it because if they actually believed it was going to hit us they would have done something about it years ago.

[Firatha]

I think the meteor this is talking about is Apophis. It is supposed to come within 22,000 miles of earth. The moon is about 240,000 miles from earth.
https://www.space.com/asteroid-apoph...y-defense.html
I think it is a big enough asteroid to cause an extinction event.

I remember when they first spoted 2004 MN4(Apophis as it came to be named)and they ran the number and the impact chance was 2.7% with high uncertainty at that time then all eyes were at on it and it got named Apophis(the god of death) only after it was to have the 2.7% chance of hitting earth but as time when they mathed out all the number and the chance of it hitting us on any of the fly bys in the near future are very low.

I remember hearing about that asteroid since I was like 5. Tired of hearing about it because if they actually believed it was going to hit us they would have done something about it years ago.

You were 5 in 2004? as for them doing nothing they knew within days that we were safe for the most part for the long term sutff it takes years to math out the fly bys in fact to get from the 1 in 300ish number in 2004 to the 1 in 150,000 chance of hittting in even the 2068 fly by took almost 12 years

[Endus]

I'm too far out of the loop to have much more than an ongoing interest in this, although I suppose that it may well become the scenario for the next big New Year movie here. What are your thoughts on this, particularly given that they're starting to discover how many other things might go wrong?

It's important to run these kinds of tests, because we're pretty good about thinking of immediate impacts, but not so good about tertiary effects. Like, the asteroid impact will create a tsunami. That tsunami will hit the city, causing flooding. The main power plant is on the coast, and likely to get shut down/badly damaged, cutting power to the city. Could take weeks to repair/rebuild. That's primary, stuff everyone thinks of.

Now, everyone's fridge and freezer goods start to spoil. Even cooking it up before it goes bad, you're probably only getting 3-4 days of food out of it, before the cooked food is going off. Same thing's happening in grocery stores and restaurants, everywhere. After a couple weeks, produce is gone, either eaten or spoiled. Canned and dry goods are being used up. How much longer will people's supplies last? Hunger's going to set in in less than 2 weeks, most likely. That's secondary.

Flooding from the tsunami takes days to recede, and washes out roadways and railroads as it does. Transport into the city is difficult; people can't get in or out. The docks are smashed to pieces. Ships could theoretically drop supplies off, but most coastal cities are already facing the same crunch; we can handle this when it's one city hit by a hurricane, not so much when it's every city on the Atlantic Ocean at under ~50m of elevation. Mass hunger is setting in, and there's little way for supplies to get in or people to get out. That's secondary too. That this is happening all over the place, meaning that response efforts are dwarfed by the scale of the impact, that's getting into tertiary. Do you provide too-little to everyone? Do you prioritize some cities to be saved and write others off? How do you make these calls, by what process? Where do you draw the line on relief efforts, and why?

And that's just "big tsunami". I haven't considered any other effects from a major asteroid strike, and how these all interact down the line. So even here, I'm not remotely done, and I'm certain I've overlooked about a thousand important issues just on this topic.

I think the meteor this is talking about is Apophis. It is supposed to come within 22,000 miles of earth. The moon is about 240,000 miles from earth.
https://www.space.com/asteroid-apoph...y-defense.html
I think it is a big enough asteroid to cause an extinction event.

Apophis is almost certainly a triggering cause to have this kind of discussion, but we do know, 100%, that Apophis is gonna miss us. But it's a close call, and really, we're overdue for a major impact, statistically speaking.

[Firatha]

And that's just "big tsunami". I haven't considered any other effects from a major asteroid strike, and how these all interact down the line. So even here, I'm not remotely done, and I'm certain I've overlooked about a thousand important issues just on this topic.


Apophis is almost certainly a triggering cause to have this kind of discussion, but we do know, 100%, that Apophis is gonna miss us. But it's a close call, and really, we're overdue for a major impact, statistically speaking.

Apophis triggered so much great discussion on this topic but there is always more to said about it I never thought about impact driven volcanos before as in the OP. Also nerver say never the 2068 impact chance is at 1 in 150000 so you never know!

[Celista]

I remember when they first spoted 2004 MN4(Apophis as it came to be named)and they ran the number and the impact chance was 2.7% with high uncertainty at that time then all eyes were at on it and it got named Apophis(the god of death) only after it was to have the 2.7% chance of hitting earth but as time when they mathed out all the number and the chance of it hitting us on any of the fly bys in the near future are very low.



You were 5 in 2004? as for them doing nothing they knew within days that we were safe for the most part for the long term sutff it takes years to math out the fly bys in fact to get from the 1 in 300ish number in 2004 to the 1 in 150,000 chance of hittting in even the 2068 fly by took almost 12 years

The problem with probability numbers is that people don't understand how they work. Remember this article about drop chances in WoW? https://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/...e-probability/ Your chance to win a low drop rate shiny is the same each attempt, but the probability of a shiny dropping over multiple runs increases over time.

The same is true with meteors. The 2.5% statistic for the likelihood of a single meteor large enough to cause an extinction-level event to impact the Earth is relatively low, but 100 extinction-level meteors with a 2.5% chance of hitting Earth gives us a 92% probability of impact.

[Firatha]

The problem with probability numbers is that people don't understand how they work. Remember this article about drop chances in WoW? https://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/...e-probability/ Your chance to win a low drop rate shiny is the same each attempt, but the probability of a shiny dropping over multiple runs increases over time.

The same is true with meteors. The 2.5% statistic for the likelihood of a single meteor large enough to cause an extinction-level event to impact the Earth is relatively low, but 100 extinction-level meteors with a 2.5% chance of hitting Earth gives us a 92% probability of impact.

And thankful we are to Apophis for only having a few trys to hit us with plenty of time in between.

[PACOX]

You were 5 in 2004? as for them doing nothing they knew within days that we were safe for the most part for the long term sutff it takes years to math out the fly bys in fact to get from the 1 in 300ish number in 2004 to the 1 in 150,000 chance of hittting in even the 2068 fly by took almost 12 years

I had to do some research because I definitely remember hearing about an asteroid when I was little. It was this one

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(35396)_1997_XF11

Not Apophis but I know I heard about something.

[Firatha]

I had to do some research because I definitely remember hearing about an asteroid when I was little. It was this one

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(35396)_1997_XF11

Not Apophis but I know I heard about something.

Pfft no fancy name and I would been 6 at that time so no chance of me remembering that.

[Mister Cheese]

If an Asteroid was heading towards earth and it was a guaranteed extinction event do you think anyone outside the .01% would find out until they were all in their bunkers with decades worth of power, food, and water?

[luc54]

The problem with probability numbers is that people don't understand how they work. Remember this article about drop chances in WoW? https://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/...e-probability/ Your chance to win a low drop rate shiny is the same each attempt, but the probability of a shiny dropping over multiple runs increases over time.

The same is true with meteors. The 2.5% statistic for the likelihood of a single meteor large enough to cause an extinction-level event to impact the Earth is relatively low, but 100 extinction-level meteors with a 2.5% chance of hitting Earth gives us a 92% probability of impact.

The probabilities on average for certain asteeoids/meteors are vanishingly small. It's better to model them with Poisson distribution. https://math.stackexchange.com/quest...erent-interval shows that on assumption that we get hit by large asteroid once every 100 million years on average. Probability of getting hit in the next 100 years is one in a million.

[EliWallach]

Lucifer's Hammer by Pournelle and Niven was a pretty good novel about surviving an asteroid impact. Highly recommended.

[enigma77]

I think the meteor this is talking about is Apophis. It is supposed to come within 22,000 miles of earth. The moon is about 240,000 miles from earth.
https://www.space.com/asteroid-apoph...y-defense.html
I think it is a big enough asteroid to cause an extinction event.

Carter will fix it.

[Nihilist74]

Carter will fix it.

Jimmy Carter?

[Dead Moose Fandango]

We'll launch Texas into space and smash the asteroid with it!

[Stormspark]

Jimmy Carter?

It was a reference to Stargate SG-1. https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Samantha_Carter

Specifically, this episode. https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Fail_Safe