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Earth's asteroid risk reduced

zer0vector

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Whew...looks like I can sleep a bit easier tonight:

Earth's asteroid risk reduced

A new survey revises down the likelihood of a massive asteroid hitting the Earth by 20-30%. We're only due to collide with rocks larger than one kilometre across roughly once every 600,000 years, it concludes.

...

The analysis doesn't change the chance of an asteroid hitting the Earth, points out astronomer Iwan Williams of Queen Mary University of London, UK. "But assuming that there are fewer large asteroids, the damage will be less," he says.
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But the real probability of a collision has remained constant. It's only our knowledge of it that's changed.
 
The funny thing about statistics that most people don't understand is that when odds are stated they automatically assume that the occurence of any particular event is equal to the largest number ( 1 chance in 50..) that does not preclude the possibility of the event happening on the first or second time.

Take a guy who bets on a number in the lottery on one ticket his odds were 1 in millions. He makes one choice and wins. that dosn't make the odds less only that one try out of one try was correct.

The odds for a collision state that n collisions occur in x years, that does not mean thet tomorrow we could not be hit by an astroid all it does is avarage the amount of known hits.

A year or so ago we missed a asteroid that was hugh and inside the moons orbit around the earth. We didn't even detect it until it headed to the sun

So my advice is if you enjoy the odds game , light up a cigar and sip brandy and play poker with your buds, at least you'll have a good time.
 
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