In recent days, one of the more popular news stories flying around the Internet has to do with a supposed “doomsday” asteroid called Apophis. And, according to some idiotic journalists who seem to want to push a sensationalistic “news” story, this asteroid is going to hit the Earth in 2036 with devastating consequences – in short, they say this is going to happen…
Well, I’m here to tell you that this is, to use the scientifically-accurate phrase, a complete load of crap. That’s because the original story, which came via a Russian “news” outlet, has been completely and thoroughly refuted by NASA and scientists worldwide…
Will Apophis Hit Earth in 2036? NASA Rejects Russian Report
In 2004, NASA scientists announced that there was a chance that Apophis, an asteroid larger than two football fields, could smash into Earth in 2029. A few additional observations and some number-crunching later, astronomers noted that the chance of the planet-killer hitting Earth in 2029 was nearly zilch.
Now, reports out of Russia say that scientists there estimate Apophis will collide with Earth on April 13, 2036. These reports conflict on the probability of such a doomsday event, but the question remains: How scared should we be? …
In answer to that question, I think we shouldn’t really be scared at all. When you crunch the latest numbers, the probability that Apophis will actually impact the Earth in 2036 is about 1-in-250,000. If you work that out to a percentage, it comes out to a 0.0004% chance the asteroid will hit Earth. That’s a pretty slim chance, and certainly nothing to get all upset about, in my opinion.
Let’s think of it this way: compare the probability that Apophis will hit Earth in 2036 with the chances of other unfortunate events (as reported by Popular Science magazine)…
Lifetime odds of dying from:
Any accident: 1 in 36
A motor vehicle accident: 1 in 81
A firearm: 1 in 202
Poisoning: 1 in 344
A falling object (terrestrial): 1 in 4,873
Drowning in a bathtub: 1 in 10,455
Being caught in or between objects: 1 in 29,860
Suffocation by a plastic bag: 1 in 130,498
So that means that you are about twice as likely to die by being suffocated in a plastic bag as compared to the chances that this “killer” asteroid Apophis will wipe out planet Earth. Stop and think about that for a moment… now, are you suddenly going to start demanding the recall of all plastic bags from society in order to protect humanity? No? Good.
Now, please don’t get me wrong – I think the issue of tracking & cataloging near-Earth objects (NEOs) is a very important one, precisely because we have solid evidence that NEOs such as asteroids & comet fragments can and do hit the Earth. In fact, this happens all the time, but the regular impacts are from smaller objects; the big, “planet-killer” type objects are fewer in number so the chances of one coming our way is comparatively small. But it could happen, and with the implications being what they are (i.e., the destruction of human civilization on Earth being among the worst-case scenarios) it would be prudent for us to invest at least some resources into these questions. And we have invested such resources into NASA’s NEO Program.
So, in conclusion, is the sky falling with regards to Apophis? No.
Should you go buying your own “asteroid apocalypse” bunker? No.
Should we then turn a blind eye to the potential threat of NEOs? No.
Should we invest a reasonable amount of money into researching this issue? Yes.
Interestingly enough, one thing we really can do when Apophis makes its closest approach to Earth in 2036 is use the opportunity to learn more about asteroids and the early solar system. In fact, some scientists already have plans to use Apophis as an amazing research opportunity!
If you’d like to know more about Apophis, and the related physics & astronomy behind it, I suggest taking a look at this entry over at Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog.
The Skeptical Teacher 