[geeks] Mr Bill?

[Phil Stracchino]

der Mouse wrote:
> And, as you point out, we are protected fairly well, both by the
> screening objects you mention and by being an awfully tiny target
> compared to the space available.

Well, while that *is* technically true, our planet *does* possess an
innate natural power to make stuff fall towards it.  :)



Current theory is we're very fortunate Jupiter sweeps up the lion's
share of the crap before it gets to us.  That said, there's been a
number of near-misses from comets within recent Western recorded history
alone, and several scares just in the past 10-20 years of "X Big Rock
has a 1 in [mumble] chance of hitting the Earth in 20[mumble]."  In
December 2004 it was calculated that there was roughly a 1 in 37 chance
of 99942 Apophis striking the Earth in 2029; it will actually pass well
within the geosync satellite cloud and will be visible with the naked
eye.  There is still a small chance (about 1 in 45000) that its close
approach in 2029 will set it up for an impact on April 13, 2036.  99942
Apophis is estimated to be 350m in average diameter and to weigh about
79 million tons; its probable impact is estimated at about 0.9 gigatons
equivalent yield (about 4.5 Krakatoas).

99942 is the most credible threat we've yet identified, and it's a slim
one.  It's not a dinosaur-killer, but it would  make a hell of a mess if
it hit.  But we don't know what's out there that we haven't spotted yet.


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
         Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.