Legit Reviews

There's a 1-in-300 chance that a recently discovered asteroid, believed to be about 1,300 feet long, could hit Earth in 2029, a NASA scientist said Thursday

There have been only a limited number of sightings of Asteroid 2004 MN4, which has been given an initial rating of 2 on the 10-point Torino Impact Hazard Scale used by astronomers to predict asteroid or comet impacts, said Donald Yeomans, manager of the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

No previously observed asteroid has been graded higher than 1.

On Friday, April 13, 2029, "we can't yet rule out an Earth impact," Yeomans said. "But the impact probability, as we call it, is 300-to-1 against an impact."

The asteroid was discovered in June and rediscovered this month.

After issuing an unprecedented "yellow alert" for a potential cosmic collision, astronomers said further observations showed that a recently discovered asteroid had no chance of hitting Earth in the year 2029.

At one point, astronomers said the uncertainty factor about 2004 MN4 allowed for a 1-in-40 chance of a collision on Friday, April 13, 2029. That led them to give the asteroid a rating of 4 on the 1-to-10 Torino scale that is used to gauge the threats posed by near-Earth asteroids and comets. Until 2004 MN4, no object had been graded higher than 1.

T-Shirt wrote:Yup, the harder they look, the more likely they will see it coming.
we've survived all these years, ignorant of the fact we could be wiped out in an instant.
Now we may get years of warning (or not) and still can't do a thing about it.