13-Year Old Corrects NASA Doomsday Calculations

[Warboy]

A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated.
Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported.

NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right.

The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.

Those satellites travel at 3.07 kilometres a second (1.9 miles), at up to 35,880 kilometres above earth -- and the Apophis asteroid will pass by earth at a distance of 32,500 kilometres.

If the asteroid strikes a satellite in 2029, that will change its trajectory making it hit earth on its next orbit in 2036.

Both NASA and Marquardt agree that if the asteroid does collide with earth, it will create a ball of iron and iridium 320 metres (1049 feet) wide and weighing 200 billion tonnes, which will crash into the Atlantic Ocean.

The shockwaves from that would create huge tsunami waves, destroying both coastlines and inland areas, whilst creating a thick cloud of dust that would darken the skies indefinitely.

The 13-year old made his discovery as part of a regional science competition for which he submitted a project entitled: "Apophis -- The Killer Astroid."

Source - PhysOrg (http://www.physorg.com/news127499715.html)

[Linchpin]

I've got so much faith in NASA right now.........................not.

[[XC] riptide]

Cool for the kid. Reminds me of that error Nasa had made regaring kms != Miles on the Martian Mission. :rolleyes:

[don_xvi]

Yeah, too bad it's not true.
I don't know when this started, but last week I saw an article that said that the space agencies said his expectations that a satellite would be hit weren't accurate or soemthing. I'll see if I can dig it up later.

[nn_step]

NASA pwned by 13 year old :ROTF:

[don_xvi]

Yeah, not so much.
Here's the dailytech article on the topic.
http://www.dailytech.com/NASA+to+13yearold+German+Boy+Neener+Neener+Neener/article11519.htm
:rolleyes:

[Warboy]

Yeah, not so much.
Here's the dailytech article on the topic.
http://www.dailytech.com/NASA+to+13yearold+German+Boy+Neener+Neener+Neener/article11519.htm
:rolleyes:

that's just NASA in Denial. There is no evidence that the boy was wrong :rofl:

[Xphobe]

Yeah, too bad it's not true.
I don't know when this started, but last week I saw an article that said that the space agencies said his expectations that a satellite would be hit weren't accurate or soemthing. I'll see if I can dig it up later.

Unless of course NASA already knows the 13 year old boy is right and they just do not want to cause a world wide panic. Well that and NASA will never let a 13 year old boy shoot their ego down the drain.

[don_xvi]

You guys ARE kidding, aren't you ?
A big part of the appeal of the story is that NASA and, in other reports, some other agency agreed that he was right. That element certainly isn't true, now it's just a 13 year old kid saying that since it will pass closer to earth than SOME satellites, the odds are suddenly 100x worse. And if it weighs 200 billion tons, how much would its trajectory be altered by an impact with a few thousand pounds of satellite ?
Hey, it's easy to look smart at the secondary school level until you have to stand up to the scrutiny of a better-developed jury.

[Scubar]

B*gger wheres Aerosmith, Bruce Willis and Ben Afleck when ya need em.

[STEvil]

You guys ARE kidding, aren't you ?
A big part of the appeal of the story is that NASA and, in other reports, some other agency agreed that he was right. That element certainly isn't true, now it's just a 13 year old kid saying that since it will pass closer to earth than SOME satellites, the odds are suddenly 100x worse. And if it weighs 200 billion tons, how much would its trajectory be altered by an impact with a few thousand pounds of satellite ?
Hey, it's easy to look smart at the secondary school level until you have to stand up to the scrutiny of a better-developed jury.

I agree, lol :rolleyes:

[pross]

i'll be approaching 60 then so bring it on lol

[[XC] riptide]

You guys ARE kidding, aren't you ?
A big part of the appeal of the story is that NASA and, in other reports, some other agency agreed that he was right. That element certainly isn't true, now it's just a 13 year old kid saying that since it will pass closer to earth than SOME satellites, the odds are suddenly 100x worse. And if it weighs 200 billion tons, how much would its trajectory be altered by an impact with a few thousand pounds of satellite ?
Hey, it's easy to look smart at the secondary school level until you have to stand up to the scrutiny of a better-developed jury.
Actually. Your not quite right there.

"In the case of 99942 Apophis it has been demonstrated by ESA's Advanced Concepts Team that deflection could be achieved by sending a simple spacecraft weighing less than one ton to impact against the asteroid. During a trade-off study one of the leading researchers argued that a strategy called 'kinetic impactor deflection' was more efficient than others."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_deflection_strategies#Kinetic_Impact

A (relatively speaking) small force on an asteroid that has a orbit such as this can change its resultant orbit dramatically.

I agree, lol :rolleyes:


You shouldn't. ;)

[dinos22]

riptide;2934173']Actually. Your not quite right there.


i had a dream last night and it went something like this

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/1637/95402706ys1.png

all the evidence is pointing that you're not right :D

[[XC] riptide]

^^ Crazy Aussies. Stay of the Tamazepam, Dinos. Stick with benchin' and schitt. :D :lol:

[STEvil]

riptide;2934173']Actually. Your not quite right there.

"In the case of 99942 Apophis it has been demonstrated by ESA's Advanced Concepts Team that deflection could be achieved by sending a simple spacecraft weighing less than one ton to impact against the asteroid. During a trade-off study one of the leading researchers argued that a strategy called 'kinetic impactor deflection' was more efficient than others."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_deflection_strategies#Kinetic_Impact

A (relatively speaking) small force on an asteroid that has a orbit such as this can change its resultant orbit dramatically.



You shouldn't. ;)

If it hits a satellite it wont be deflected enough to hit us on the first pass and probably by the time it comes around for another (if the deflection doesnt push it off course to just bugger off into space somewhere for eternity) we'll probably have built something that will hit it a lot better than a satellite ever would have and we'll have control over the direction we want to send it in.

[Moneyless]

Sorry, I don't want to rain on your parade gents, but...


Widespread media reports claim that a German schoolboy has recalculated the likelihood of a deadly planet-smasher asteroid hitting the Earth, and found the catastrophe is enormously more likely than NASA thought. The boy's sums were said to have been checked by both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), and found to be correct.

There's only one problem with the story: the kid's sums are in fact wrong, NASA's are right, and the ESA swear blind they never said any different. An ESA spokesman in Germany told the Reg this morning: "A small boy did do these calculations, but he made a mistake... NASA's figures are correct."

It would appear that the intial article in the Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten, which says that NASA and the ESA endorsed Nico Marquardt's calculations, was incorrect. The story was picked up by German tabloids and the AFP news wire, and is now all over the internet.

Marquardt apparently reckoned that the odds of the well-known Apophis asteroid hitting Earth were not one in 45,000 as assessed by NASA, but rather one in 450. Apophis will pass close by Earth in 2029 and 2036, so close that it will come nearer than satellites in geostationary orbit.

It seems that Marquardt's calculations included the possibility of collision with a satellite in some way not thought to have been covered by NASA, which bumped up the odds of a subsequent Earth strike. But NASA says:

[The asteroid will pass] within the distance of Earth's geosynchronous satellites. However, because Apophis will pass interior to the positions of these satellites at closest approach, in a plane inclined at 40 degrees to the Earth's equator and passing outside the equatorial geosynchronous zone when crossing the equatorial plane, it does not threaten the satellites in that heavily populated region.

All in all, it seems there's no need to dust off the asteroid-busting space nukes just yet. ®

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/esa_german_schoolboy_apophis_denial/


Sorta pwnt but not really... lol :yawn:

[[XC] riptide]

If it hits a satellite it wont be deflected enough to hit us on the first pass and probably by the time it comes around for another (if the deflection doesnt push it off course to just bugger off into space somewhere for eternity) we'll probably have built something that will hit it a lot better than a satellite ever would have and we'll have control over the direction we want to send it in.

:p: :cool:

[trance565]

You guys ARE kidding, aren't you ?
A big part of the appeal of the story is that NASA and, in other reports, some other agency agreed that he was right. That element certainly isn't true, now it's just a 13 year old kid saying that since it will pass closer to earth than SOME satellites, the odds are suddenly 100x worse. And if it weighs 200 billion tons, how much would its trajectory be altered by an impact with a few thousand pounds of satellite ?
Hey, it's easy to look smart at the secondary school level until you have to stand up to the scrutiny of a better-developed jury.

by satelites it means other planets and moons and astroids and meteors. not satelites that we have launched into space.

[NightRaven]

riptide;2934315']^^ Crazy Aussies. Stay of the Tamazepam, Dinos. Stick with benchin' and schitt. :D :lol:

haha aye second that! with a slight punctuation correction...

CRAZEE AUSSIE!!!!!!!!! :shocked: :D

[don_xvi]

by satelites it means other planets and moons and astroids and meteors. not satelites that we have launched into space.

Let's go back to the first article quoted:
"The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.

Those satellites travel at 3.07 kilometres a second (1.9 miles), at up to 35,880 kilometres above earth -- and the Apophis asteroid will pass by earth at a distance of 32,500 kilometres."
The moon's another order of magnitude out there (admittedly from Wikipedia... The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is 384,403 km)
I wouldn't be so worried if it hit the moon, perhaps it could land a good square shot ! I'm still not so convinced that demolishing a satellite would alter it's trajectory too much, either. The stuff I've watched on the "History"
Channel (more like they've become the "doomsday channel") suggested that to redirect an errant asteroid would require a gravity tug or a rocket motor, not a kinetic impact.

[Duniek]

haha dinos,you make my day, pls give me more your drawings, its aweosme
I will print'em and will mount it above at my bed lol

[dinos22]

haha aye second that! with a slight punctuation correction...

CRAZEE AUSSIE!!!!!!!!! :shocked: :D

i'll try' to fix' it 'nex't ti''me goo'd S'i'r.! :D
[edit - fixed it up a bit :D]

[alexio]

This is utter nonsense. The kid doesn't have the tools (a supercomputer) nor the required data to accurately estimate the effect of the asteroid colliding with a satellite. Nor does he have data on how many artificial satellites are truly in earth's orbit, not to mention specifications of all those satellites, like weight, 'hight', etc. Half of it is probably confidential and the the rest couldn't have all been collected by a 13 year old boy.

[[XC] riptide]

^^^ Don. The child reckons that on teh NEXT pass that the risk will be greater. Not to deflect the asteroid in the first pass form way out to hitting the earth.!

Isn't this asteroid also calculated to make a another pass after this one coming up?

[don_xvi]

This is correct, and understood.
The expectation is that it will hit a satellite in 2029 which will deflect it enough (who knows which direction?!?!?!) to hit earth in 2036. From memory. I still say it's a lot of bunk and, sorry for the Walter Mitty fans out there, will believe the big boys on this one.:down:

[[XC] riptide]

Well. theres a few things that we can work with. And unless I have a 3D simulation of the events I can't really be precise. However... the Geo Stationary satellites go one way. the same way as the rotation of the earth. From West to East if that makes sense. If the asteroid passes running against the direction of these satelites we can take it that the impact(s) IF it happens will slow down the asteroid by the tiniest amounts. Any slow down of the asteroid naturally makes its solar orbit sink a little. And if this sinking may brings it within a closer statistical envelope. If they already have a plotted route for this asteroid, then it doesn't take much work to use that and add in a few variables and put in a few error bars for good measure.