Scientist Warns Massive Asteroid Could Hit Earth in 2182


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A large asteroid in space that has a remote chance of slamming into the Earth would be most likely hit in 2182, if it crashed into our planet at all, a new study suggests.

The asteroid, called 1999 RQ36, has about a 1-in-1,000 chance of actually hitting the Earth, but half of that risk corresponds to potential impacts in the year 2182, said study co-author Mar?a Eugenia Sansaturio of the Universidad de Valladolid in Spain.

Sansaturio and her colleagues used mathematical models to determine the risk of asteroid 1999 RQ36 impacting the Earth through the year 2200. They found two potential opportunities for the asteroid to hit Earth in 2182.

The research is detailed in the science journal Icarus.

The asteroid was discovered in 1999 and is about 1,837 feet (560 meters) across. A space rock this size could cause widespread devastation at an impact site in the remote chance that it hit Earth, according to a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences.

The Yarkovsky effect, named after the Russian engineer I.O. Yarkovsky who proposed it around 1900, describes how an asteroid gains momentum from thermal radiation that it emits from its night side. Over hundreds of years, the effect's influence on an asteroid's orbit could be substantial.

Sansaturio and her colleagues found that through 2060, the chances of Earth impacts from 1999 RQ36 are remote, but the odds increase by a magnitude of four by 2080 as the asteroid's orbit brings it closer to the Earth.

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Wish i was a scientist so i could make claims that no one alive today is going to be able to verify, by 2182 no one will remember she has said it.

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Wish i was a scientist so i could make claims that no one alive today is going to be able to verify, by 2182 no one will remember she has said it.

We need to give her $5 billion immediately to investigate our impending doom. This is a matter of urgency and all scientist who discover asteroids that might hit earth should recieve unlimited funding.

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Wish i was a scientist so i could make claims that no one alive today is going to be able to verify, by 2182 no one will remember she has said it.

Nice sig.

We need to give her $5 billion immediately to investigate our impending doom. This is a matter of urgency and all scientist who discover asteroids that might hit earth should recieve unlimited funding and women.

FIxed.

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Wish i was a scientist so i could make claims that no one alive today is going to be able to verify, by 2182 no one will remember she has said it.

Speak for yourself.

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Yes, and I predict in the year 3000 AD, pigs will fly and hell will freeze over! Unless, of course, 2012 doesn't wipe us out first! :)

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by 2182 - the human race would of self destroyed by then!

According to many people the same would have happened by 2000. Apparently we're still here...

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And I thought we had only a year and half left in this world. :whistle:

No no, that's when IPv4 addresses run out. But then again...

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Wish i was a scientist so i could make claims that no one alive today is going to be able to verify, by 2182 no one will remember she has said it.

Your post is ignorance at its finest.

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I always thought asteroid impacts were not a question of if but when. Fossil fuels will run out in the next 50 years, alot of us won't be alive then but if you care about your kids and grand-kids its good to be armed with the knowledge so they can start making steps.

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