Huge Asteroid to Fly Past Earth July 3

K.I.L.E.R said:
Can someone please clear this up.
Are we seriously going to die?

Yes, in about 80 years. Unless we have an accident of course. Or some bad disease. Or a heart attack. Or get murdered.
 
MinMstr mentioned that there's a 50 chance of each asteroid hitting us.
I'd say that's a good probability to kill us.

Let's say there are 10 asteroids.
Pr(50 per asteroid hitting us

Pr(50) = 0.5^10 = 0.0009765625
To be hit by all 10 but doesn't this assume that each asteroid doesn't depend on each other to determine if we are going to be hit by the consecutive asteroid?

So that means the probability to be hit by all of them could be much higher.
 
Okay KILER - the joke is old and getting quite tiresome now. Can we not have this silly "we're all going to die" business every time somebody posts a thread about bloody asteroids or anything astronomical?
 
There are always PMs for this sort of thing.
If you need to post anything personal then please use PMs.
If you have a list of behavioural changes you'd like me to implement then please PM me about it.

In the meantime, I will do as you suggested, think of better jokes.


Neeyik said:
Okay KILER - the joke is old and getting quite tiresome now. Can we not have this silly "we're all going to die" business every time somebody posts a thread about bloody asteroids or anything astronomical?


Okay then. 50% chance they all miss, so what chance for one to hit and the rest to miss?
I would like to deconstruct the probabilities.

And KILER re-read what he posted, its 50% chance that they will ALL miss...
 
Dont forget that there are not actually 3200 of these things hurtling towards us, not even 1. Its going considerably to the side of us. But anyway, prob. of 1 out of 3200 asteroids hittin us is 0.5. Now if you only have 10 asteroids in the same space the prob for one of those hitting is drastically less.
 
So a few [n]may[/b] stray towards us but nothing serious would happen?

Jabbah said:
Dont forget that there are not actually 3200 of these things hurtling towards us, not even 1. Its going considerably to the side of us. But anyway, prob. of 1 out of 3200 asteroids hittin us is 0.5. Now if you only have 10 asteroids in the same space the prob for one of those hitting is drastically less.
 
I think the main point that was being made is that for every 3200 of these things that fly past there is a 50% chance one of the 3200 will hit. Now if you only get 1 every 1500 years then there is a 50% chance that the earth will get hit by one every 4.8 million years.
 
K.I.L.E.R said:
I already know those 2 calculations/equations, what's your point?
Cool, then you already know the answer.

- work out the area of a circle with radius equal to that of the Earth (say 6370km)
- work out the area of a circle with radius equal to that of the Moons orbit (say 384400km)
- divide the first by the second, this gives you the fraction of a random stream of asteroids passing within the Moon's orbit which would impact Earth (~0.03% by my maths)

Granted this doesn't actually give you the correct ratio, because it assumes the trajectory is unaffected by the Earth's gravity, but I doubt it's *that* far off (maybe an order of magnitude, or two ;))

If you really want to work it out, it'll make some good coding practice for you in numerical integration! The physics is all easy, just Newton's Laws.
 
london-boy said:
Slayer...?

You got it!!! And why the hell do you know that? Shouldn't you be listening to Abba or such? :devilish:

EDIT: rabid said it already...

Back on topic: all the statistics won't help if that once in 4.8 mio. years is tomorrow, for example. But such thoughts are definitely not worth the effort.
 
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Thanks.
Neat explanation, made me feel much better. :)

Jabbah said:
I think the main point that was being made is that for every 3200 of these things that fly past there is a 50% chance one of the 3200 will hit. Now if you only get 1 every 1500 years then there is a 50% chance that the earth will get hit by one every 4.8 million years.
 
K.I.L.E.R said:
So a few may stray towards us but nothing serious would happen?

Well that would be nice, unfortunately the moon will be in such a position at that time that the asteroid will slingshot around it and impact the earth somewhere near Melbourne :devilish:
 
I figured you'd make me work it out. :p
When I went over Monte Carlo I struggled to find anything special about it that I didn't already know or done in class.

Why does everyone give funny little names to basic things like that?


nutball said:
Cool, then you already know the answer.

- work out the area of a circle with radius equal to that of the Earth (say 6370km)
- work out the area of a circle with radius equal to that of the Moons orbit (say 384400km)
- divide the first by the second, this gives you the fraction of a random stream of asteroids passing within the Moon's orbit which would impact Earth (~0.03% by my maths)

Granted this doesn't actually give you the correct ratio, because it assumes the trajectory is unaffected by the Earth's gravity, but I doubt it's *that* far off (maybe an order of magnitude, or two ;))

If you really want to work it out, it'll make some good coding practice for you in numerical integration! The physics is all easy, just Newton's Laws.
 
K.I.L.E.R said:
There are always PMs for this sort of thing.
If you need to post anything personal then please use PMs.
If you have a list of behavioural changes you'd like me to implement then please PM me about it.
Interesting that you choose now to act all serious and mature. :rolleyes:
 
K.I.L.E.R said:
I figured you'd make me work it out. :p
When I went over Monte Carlo I struggled to find anything special about it that I didn't already know or done in class.
There's no real magic to Monte Carlo, except maybe interpreting the statistical significance of your results.

Why does everyone give funny little names to basic things like that?
It's named after Monte Carlo, in Monaco, which is a haven for gambling and other probabilisitic methods for extracting money from people.
 
What are you talking about?
Seriously, there are PMs.
If you need to talk to me, use PMs.
I realise that you don't like me but there is no reason to put it out publically.

Neeyik said:
Interesting that you choose now to act all serious and mature. :rolleyes:
 
nutball said:
There's no real magic to Monte Carlo, except maybe interpreting the statistical significance of your results.


It's named after Monte Carlo, in Monaco, which is a haven for gambling and other probabilisitic methods for extracting money from people.

A related problem to look at is Buffon's needle.
 
Deepak said:
Can't Earth's gravitational pull suck asteroids passing close to her? :rolleyes:

Yah, I'm a bit late t the party but regarding to this quote, yes with a big but. The gravitational well of earth is miniscule compared to the gas giants and the sun. So any objects will have a tendency to head towards larger bodies and ignore earth all together.

This makes any earth impact a rare event indeed. It is thanks to the outer rim planets that life can thrive on earth.
 
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