Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The Threat is Out There
Uh Oh!...
In Popular Mechanics, David Noland reports:
"Scientists calculate that if Apophis passes at a distance of exactly 18,893 miles, it will go through a 'gravitational keyhole.' This small region in space—only about a half mile wide, or twice the diameter of the asteroid itself—is where Earth's gravity would perturb Apophis in just the wrong way, causing it to enter an orbit seven-sixths as long as Earth's. In other words, the planet will be squarely in the crosshairs for a potentially catastrophic asteroid impact precisely seven years later, on April 13, 2036."
"Radar and optical tracking during Apophis's fly-by last summer put the odds of the asteroid passing through the keyhole at about 45,000-to-1."
