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Scientists say asteroid may hit Mars

ctv.ca — Mars could be in for an asteroid hit. A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the Red Planet on Jan. 30.

Who dugg this? Made popular Dec 21, 2007

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  • WoWBits, on 12/21/2007, -2/+68I hope the property I bought up there on eBay is ok.
  • laika333, on 12/21/2007, -7/+70The strike would actually happen about 11 minutes before you could see it from earth.
    Because of the speed of light and all.
    /nerd
  • inactive, on 12/21/2007, -3/+61Terraform the ***** out of mars Mr. Asteroid!
  • MikeonTV, on 12/21/2007, -7/+57Too bad it's not heading for Pluto. Stupid dwarf planet!
  • Proctor, on 12/21/2007, -2/+44Ill have my telescope and watch the dust plume, LIVE. If it hits. Will be a once in a lifetime amazing sight.
  • MrTwix, on 12/21/2007, -0/+32At least those robots will have something to take photos of.
  • chewbacca77, on 12/21/2007, -4/+34I happen to LIKE Pluto.
  • santaliqueur, on 12/21/2007, -1/+28Not necessarily, the distance from Earth to Mars varies wildly, from 35 million to 250 million miles. The Sun is always ~93 million, give or take a few million.
  • ryodoan, on 12/22/2007, -0/+27But you have to admit that final footage would be kickass
  • JacobParker, on 12/21/2007, -1/+28you would be looking back in time!
  • Ksg89, on 12/21/2007, -5/+3111 minutes? lot less than that, see the sun 8 minutes late
  • ShihJhit, on 12/21/2007, -0/+22"which is halfway to Mars" half way from where?!
  • jonjo, on 12/22/2007, -0/+21you're a "glass is 74/75ths empty" kinda guy aren't yer
  • mswope, on 12/21/2007, -0/+21On the other hand, there's a 74 out of 75 chance that it won't hit Mars...
  • fakekevinrose, on 12/21/2007, -0/+21i hope it doesnt hit the NASA rovers
  • inactive, on 12/21/2007, -0/+20I hope the rovers catch it all on camera. So we could study more in depth the effects of an asteroid impact.
  • rebotfc, on 12/21/2007, -0/+20Is anyone else concerned that they could only give a month notice for this, if the asteroid was to hit earth instead of mars could we only get 40 days warning?
  • cybrguy, on 12/21/2007, -0/+17I think we should practice our "Armageddon skillz" and try to stop it using nukes. Besides, it would be pretty cool to watch.
  • kefkastudio, on 12/21/2007, -0/+16Those odds are about as great as a digg user getting a girlfriend.

    I'm not holding my breath on this one.
  • diggydougie, on 12/21/2007, -1/+16Not if you count the shoemaker levy impact. That makes two in my lifetime. Still awesome though.
  • jmaxwell, on 12/21/2007, -1/+16thats it, we need to strike back at klendathu
  • DeskFlyer, on 12/21/2007, -1/+12Someone alert the worms!
  • inactive, on 12/21/2007, -8/+19Too bad it's not heading for Earth. You foolish earthlings!
  • diggydougie, on 12/21/2007, -0/+10Will it hit on the side that we can see at that moment? Bummer if it hits on the "night" side and all we get to see is a new crater. The astronomers would be all atwitter over the new crater anyway.
  • cerberes, on 12/21/2007, -3/+12BAhhh, they're all wrong... its just the Martians trying to get back home.
  • dartmanx, on 12/22/2007, -1/+10No you didn't. Really. You didn't.
  • jonjo, on 12/22/2007, -0/+9pretty hard to see? erm.. not if you've got a telescope that can see round corners
  • chingy1788, on 12/22/2007, -0/+9its not live its been delayed by at least 3 minutes, and up to 21 minutes
  • asskey, on 12/21/2007, -2/+10Disney bestiality?
  • Lososaurus, on 12/21/2007, -0/+7Soldiers are calling it "Big-K", it's an ugly planet, it's a bug planet, it's a plane- *gets mauled by bug warrior*
  • iticu, on 12/21/2007, -0/+7Why do you care if Mars gets hit by a asteroid?
  • Christbait, on 12/21/2007, -0/+7I hope you have your PP buyer protection in check.
  • mthole, on 12/21/2007, -1/+8A few days ago was the closest Earth Mars would be for the next several years, so I'm going to guess the lightspeed-delay would be considerably less than 11 minutes.
  • dartmanx, on 12/22/2007, -0/+6Stupid speed of light!
  • ArvickHero, on 12/21/2007, -0/+6Better start investing in that asteroid-repelling technology
  • inactive, on 12/21/2007, -1/+7What if the asteroid in question was carrying a massive payload of frozen gases or Water? It could thicken the atmosphere slightly. Get this to happen dozens of times and it could be an interesting form of terraforming...
    Im not gonna argue how the hell you would do that. But its an interesting idea eh?
  • mthole, on 12/21/2007, -0/+6Seriously... 1/75 chance with only ~40 days warning. Yikes.
  • SquidLips, on 12/21/2007, -0/+6Actually this could result in some really good science because spectra of the flash and aftermath might be possible.
  • Orderless, on 12/21/2007, -0/+6Odds of being killed sometime in the next year in any sort of transportation accident: 77 to 1
    Close to the same odds.
  • ChileanGoD, on 12/22/2007, -0/+5*grabs pop-corn*
  • GoatRoper, on 12/22/2007, -0/+5I believe it prefers to be called a "Midget Planet" these days
  • inactive, on 12/22/2007, -0/+5Yeah ***** You Pluto.
  • StrawberryMacaw, on 12/22/2007, -0/+5I see a few problems with this article:

    1. "...the asteroid, which is halfway to Mars..."

    What does that mean? Halfway from where?

    2. "Scientists expect the odds to diminish again early next month after getting new observations..."

    That makes no sense. If they have reason to expect the odds to diminish, that means that the odds are currently being overstated. They should correct the current odds estimate so that future observations have as much chance of increasing the figure as they do of decreasing it.

    3. As brocklese noted above, Shoemaker Levy 9 happened in 1994, not 2004.
  • RoboRay, on 12/22/2007, -0/+5Actually, the gravity is fine, and the temperature only needs to be raised a few degrees to permit a much thicker, sustainable atmosphere. Mars would be pretty simple to terraform. We could actually do it with current technology in a few hundred years.
  • Wolfwoodxlv, on 12/21/2007, -0/+5Santaliqueur and mthole.. you are both correct - I believe it is somewhere between 25-40 million miles right now.. which is actually even less than half the distance of the sun to earth... so I'd even go with 3.5 minutes
  • Cl1mh4224rd, on 12/22/2007, -0/+4> "I hope the property I bought up there on eBay is ok."

    Step 2 of my eBay scam is going wonderfully...
  • BigManOnCampus, on 12/21/2007, -5/+9TMI
  • Renton, on 12/21/2007, -2/+6A planet sitting right next to the asteroid belt might get hit by an asteroid? No way.
  • darlyn, on 12/22/2007, -0/+4*dun dun dun* Good point, though.
  • Culero, on 12/22/2007, -1/+5we could take all our hummers up there and just drive around. That'll warm things up a bit.
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