Apophis.......?

Question

ok a 13 year old german school boy just prooved NASA wrong instead of 1-45000 chance of hitting earth APOPHIS now has 1-450 chance. Now just a couple of ?'s they nsay it could hit in the Atlantic.

1. Is it a Global Killer?

2.possible ways to destroy it like th missile defense, would that even work?

3. will this bring back THE "BOMB"

4. any other info you know. just curious

Answer 1

1. No, it is too small... might cause a mini ice age though with all the water vapor and/or dust from impact. Check this site out for impact simulator (http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects... Using the numbers from Wikipedia for speed (30.73), half the diameter of the resulting meteorite given in the news article (320m, r = 160m), using the iron setting for density, and 90 for impact for worst case scenario, at 85km from impact you would feel the equivalent of a 6.7 quake, get 1.88 inches of ejecta falling on you, and have windows busted from the air-shock, but no thermal danger.

2. Nope, seeing as the only current system for missile defense uses small missiles like the patriot.

3. The "BOMB" is still around; it never went away... we are just pointing them at different places compared to 20 years ago.

Answer 2

This from wikipedia:

On April 15, 2008, a German ESA spokesman told news organizations that "... A small boy did do these calculations, but he made a mistake ... NASA's figures are correct"[8] although the main difference asserted was that Apophis would not pass near the equatorial satellites found in that part of near-earth space but does not take into account the satellites in polar orbits. As of April 16th AFP press sources had not revised or retracted their story that the boy's calculations were correct. The clarification offered by the ESA spokesman did not dispute the boy's assertions but state that there would be no satellites (based on the objects currently tracked in orbit) in the area Apophis is scheduled to pass through.