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If in 2032 an impact did occur, how much time before that impact would be able to ascertain over 50% probability of impact? hypothetically. That is, does the c
by SubiculumCode 2y ago
If in 2032 an impact did occur, how much time before that impact would be able to ascertain over 50% probability of impact? hypothetically.
That is, does the certainty increase steadily or non-linearly over time? Does near certainty of an impact occur from measurements taken just minutes before the impact, or hours, days, years?
- ars 2y agoWe would see it years before, and we would know with certainty years before. If the object really looked like it might impact I'm sure someone would get time on a powerful telescope to lock in the orbit.
- rubyfan 2y ago[flagged]
- School-Cotton 2y agoHow far in advance would we know exactly _where_ on the Earth it will hit? If, say, New York is going to be destroyed, it makes a big difference if we know that a year in advance vs. a day.
- dylan604 2y agoDoes it though? People don't leave hurricane zones. People don't heed tornado warnings. I just have very little faith in humanity, and fell like "Don't Look Up" would be not too far off. Also, if you evacuate New York a year in advance, who's to say that the prediction isn't just a skosh off so that New York is left untouched but the real impact location was hit unprepared?
- School-Cotton 2y agoA lot of people do evacuate hurricane zones, even when death and destruction are not absolutely guaranteed. If we knew with certainty that a particular place was going to be hit by an asteroid, and we had time to evacuate, I am confident most people would do so.
- dylan604 2y agoThe accuracy issue is the thing. I’d venture a guess that our prediction of the path of a hurricane 7 days out is more accurate than predicting where an impact will be.
- maushu 2y agoIt's actually the opposite. Calculating an asteroid impact is much easier because it primarily involves basic Newtonian physics. In contrast, the climate is a chaotic system, making long-term predictions far more complex.
- dylan604 2y agoI don't know how it's opposite. There's some complex guesstimating on where an asteroid will hit. We roughly know its size. We roughly know its composition. We roughly know its speed. We can give a +/- range where the impact area will be. That's not any different than how hurricane spaghetti models do.
- jjk166 2y agoThe difference is knowing the size, speed and composition of a hurtling rock tells you where it's going to go, where as knowing the size, speed, and composition of a hurricane does not tell you where the hurricane will go. Complexity isn't a problem, the issue with weather prediction is that it's chaotic - extremely small changes to starting conditions cause large changes to the end result.
- mmooss 2y ago
- ars 2y agoKnowing if it will hit is a lot easier than knowing where. Knowing where, will depend on the angle of impact - if came basically straight in (tangent to the surface) we can be pretty accurate, but the more shallow the angle the harder it will be. With a shallow angle, we'll probably be able to tell the latitude pretty well, but not the longitude.
- jampekka 2y agoNitpick: normal to the surface.
- ars 2y agoOops! Yes, I meant to say perpendicular (or normal).
- mongol 2y agoIt must be easy to determine which face of the earth it strikes though...?
- School-Cotton 2y agoThe earth rotates on its axis, So knowing the exact point it hits would depend on the exact time it hits. Presumably that's why the other commenter said knowing latitude would be easier than knowing longitude.
- mmooss 2y ago> how much time before that impact would be able to ascertain over 50% probability of impact? hypothetically. I understand it's hypothetical, but even a 10% chance of hitting a city, for example, would be a crisis.
- 542354234235 2y agoThey didn't say anything about 50% being the minimum level for a crisis. There is no "but" because they are two different topics. One is "how far out could an impact be predicted at 50/50 probability" and the other is "at what probability of impact would it become a serious issue/crisis".