sudden impact???

Question

are we in any real danger of a meteor destroying the planet in our lifetime??!!

Answer 1

Statistically,no.At some point in time?A certainty.While not an "earth killer",a meteor the size of the one that hit Tunguska,Siberia in 1908 is estimated to occur,on average,every hundred years or so (you do the math,lol)

Luckily,that one hit in one of the remotest areas on Earth and in 1908 we had no nuclear missiles.Should the next one impact a major city,not only will it utterly destroy the city,it MAY cause a panic in the war room,leading to an "accidental nuclear war"which could pretty well screw the entire planet.Don't scoff,this is a very REAL threat.We have gone into high alert several times in the past decades because of meteors exploding in the atmosphere,if one actually hit a city,understand that our ENTIRE nuclear strategy,should we think we are under attack,is to get ALL our ICBMs in the air before they can take them out.The whole strategy is to destroy them worse than they destroy you.That's the whole strategy,really.I know this.You don't "win" a nuke war,you survive it better than your opponent,so,in an indirect way,through miscommunication and panic,you may indeed be in danger in your lifetime.

As for the "planet killers",those the size that took out the dinosaurs,are much rarer,and logic dictates that with time,odds would decrease as over time,more will have already impacted the Earth,or other planetary bodies,and therefore less would still be out there in orbit.

A common misconception people have is that scientists have all the meteors tracked.The truth is,they don't have all the meteors FOUND,much less their orbits tracked.No scientist in the world will tell you otherwise.

We only began to percieve impacts as a real threat,and thus began a project to find and track them,after observing Comet Shoemaker-Levy break into 9 pieces and impact Jupiter,One impact site was larger than the Earth itself.

So,we have BEGUN the process,we have made great strides in finding asteroids and tracking their orbits now that we have an ACTIVE effort to do so.The ones we HAVE tracked appear to be no immediate threat,possibly there is one(not a planet killer,and the world KNOWS about this one,so no nuke "mistake")depending on how close it gets to the Earth THIS time,may come back and impact at a later date.

The problem isn't with the ones we found,the problem is the ones we DON'T yet know about.And there are estimated THOUSANDS that we haven't even found yet,much less tracked their orbits.One could be coming around from the far side of the sun right now,we don't know until we see it.This is real.No scientist in the entire world will tell you differently.

As time passes,now that we realise the importance of finding and tracking these critters,we will find more,and eventually all of them,and respond to the best of our abilities.Until such time though,the threat of an unexpected impact is very real.Could be next month,could be a million years.Both time frames are statistically equally likely

Personally,I expect to see a significant,tunguska-like event in my lifetime.We WILL deal with it though,and I'd say give the asteroid hunter's another 10 years,and they will pretty much be able to tell you if we will get impacted or not.At this point,they can only tell us if we will get impacted by the asteroids they KNOW of.ALL scientists admit there are thousands of yet undetected asteroids out there,but they are working diligently to locate and track them

Answer 2

Many good answers here, but I'll throw in my two cents' worth--

A large meteor or asteroid impact, no. We've pretty much got all the "planet killers" identified.

What we should be worried about are comets. Unlike short period comets like Halley, most comets come from the Oort Cloud, far beyond the planets, and are relatively undetectable until they are nudged by some gravitational perturbation to fall towards the inner solar system. They're relatively small, but so are usually not noticed until they're close enough for the solar wind to "turn on the tail". It's difficult to accurately predict their path until they've been observed for a while. By the time we realized one was on a collision course, it would probably be too late to do anything about it.

In 1994, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (actually a string of fractured comet fragments), was only discovered 16 months before it hit Jupiter. Jupiter is about 11 times larger in diameter, thus is a bigger target, so it was more likely to have taken a hit than was Earth. To have been alive at a time to have witnessed a cometary collision with a planet was a stroke of incredible luck, but the flip side is that, statistically speaking, if you had a comet that you knew was going to strike either Earth or Jupiter, the odds were one in twelve it would have hit Earth. (Jupiter's higher gravity also has an effect of attracting more such bodies than would Earth's gravity.)

The largest fragment of Shoemaker-Levy 9 produced an Earth-sized impact scar in the jovian atmosphere and released an energy equivalent to 6,000,000 megatons of TNT (750 times the world's nuclear arsenal). Odds are that Jupiter would see about ten more cometary impacts before it's our turn, but being Gamblin' Man, I don't like those odds, considering the stakes.

Answer 3

Meteor - NO

Asteroid - Possibly someday.

However, it must occur in less than 5 Billion years if anyone
is to see it. The Sun is scheduled (forecasted) to burn up all of its available supply of Hydrogen Gas in 5 Billion Years. At that time it will shift to consuming Helium Gas and expand to a size that is three to five times its present size. In the process, it will consume (suck in and absorb) all nearby objects. Planets such as Mercury and Venus are highly probable victims with Earth the next on the list. In any event, the increase in size of the Sun will cause massive increases in Earth Temperature and most likely incinerate everything on the surface. So, if the asteroid hits in say 6 or 7 Billion years, no one will know about it.

In our lifetime...NO. Probably not.

What is important is that if either
Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama win the
presidential elections in November of 2008,
the world as we know it now will cease to exist.

Answer 4

The Earth has been hit throughout history by large meteors, even last century in Russia, but today 75% of our inner system asteroids have been identified. There are several that might hit in out lifetime, but their nothing like the ones in say Deep Impact or Armageddon. The 25% that are left are in the farther sections of the solar system in orbits that don't come close to Earth often. Those are the ones that can sneak up on us, but its highly unlikely one will anytime soon.

Answer 5

We are in danger of anything only during our lifetime (then we pass it off to the next generation). There can be no guarantee that heavenly bodies will not collide and one will be directed toward earth's orbit about the sun. It likely will miss us anyway. But based on past statistics we also likely have a far greater chance of winning a huge lottery, so enjoy life and don't fret (about the lottery).

Answer 6

They have recalculated the astroid in question and now say it will miss by long distance, Besides scientists and many others are working on ways to push an asteroid out of the path of earth should it arrive and it will work,, there is nothing to worry about,, besides it was not even predicted until like 2030 but now its not predicted to hit at all,,

Answer 7

Not till 200 years......
Scientists can find a meteor in far away in space falling to earth after 250 years...
According to that, no meteor is falling to earth within 250 years....

Answer 8

small danger, but yes it's real. it's very unlikely, but could be so catastrophic as to give a statistically significant probability of killing you.

Answer 9

No ! not at all we but you may if you think so.