What is the chance of an extinction level event occurring in the next five years?

Question

I was trying to figure out which Morgan Freeman films they would put on if he did not make it. Deep Impact would have been a contender.

So what are the chances and how are they worked out?

Answer 1

Great chance, anything could happen. We could die right now

Answer 2

The chances of a strike by a 5 km diameter asteroid in the next five years -> precisely zero.

Only 58 asteroids of that size that have perihelia closer than 1.3 AU.  None are a threat for at least the next 100 years.

Answer 3

Take a look at:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/apophis/

this tells you about the next most likely meteoric disaster, but the odds are low ( 1 in 45,000 in 2036).

It is actually very difficult to predict precisely - but astronomers are watching near earth objects, and anything that big and only 5 years out should have been noticed by now.

As for Morgan Freeman movies - I'd vote for Shawshank Redemption (far superior to Deep Impact, and he has a bigger part).

Answer 4

We're coming toward the end of a 40,000 year extinction event now.  I'm betting that within the next 300 years, we'll lose half the biodiversity on the planet.

Answer 5

VERY low

Answer 6

Extinction level events don't always come from outer space, i would say the odds of a global pandemic wiping out humanity is even more likely then a asteroid, meteor or comet hitting earth.

Answer 7

it started today

yes, i mean the Olympics

thousands of athletes will be delivering the Chinese flu virus to their home countries unaware of the resulting epidemic.

good luck, I am staying indoors with my bag of oranges.

Answer 8

The probability of a mass extinction is rather low, considering our level of technology to see NEOs (near Earth objects)..but it is not zero.

Answer 9

nil.

Answer 10

it would be impossilbe to work out, even a general number.... there are just far too many diffrent things/objects that could effect us at the E.L.E. level....

though, suffice it to say, with our current knowledge on everything.... the chances are practicly 0...

Answer 11

About one in sixty billion.

Answer 12

It's hard to say. There have been roughly six natural major extinction events in the past 500 million years. That means that in five years, the chances of another major extinction event would be about six millionths of one percent, or 0.00000006.

However, not all those six extinction events were necessarily caused by meteor impacts. In addition, they seem to be gradually decreasing in frequency, meaning that the chances of one happening in the near future are much lower. Furthermore, there are a number of artificial effects which change the probability. Many scientists (along with plenty of eco-freaks) say that our current era is undergoing another extinction event called the Holocene Extinction Event, the difference being that this one is being caused by us. I'm assuming, however, that you're only talking about meteor impacts. In that case, you also have to take into account the fact that we are currently tracking over 80% of the NEOs (Near Earth Objects) large enough to cause a major extinction, and none of them is expected to approach dangerously close to the Earth in the next five years. So my estimate for the chances of a meteor large enough to cause a major extinction landing in the next five years is approximately one in a hundred million.

Interestingly, as you add years (say, ten years instead of five, or fifteen instead of ten, etc), the chances of a major extinction impact occurring do NOT grow linearly with the number of years. In fact, the fastest growth in chances probably occurs at around ten years or so. The reason for this? Two reasons, actually. First, it is harder to predict object orbits farther in the future, so a known NEO not known to be on a collision course with the Earth is more likely to impact at a given later date than a given earlier date. Second, an NEO which IS on a collision course with the Earth will probably be detected some time before it hits, and with at least ten or fifteen years' warning, it is fairly realistic for us to build a spaceship to go out and knock it off course before it hits (like in Deep Impact). Thus, the chances of the Earth receiving a major natural impact in the year 2020 is higher than the chances of one occurring in 2009, but the chances of one occurring in the year 2100 is far LOWER, because of our advancing technology.

Answer 13

In this century a number of events could extinguish humanity. The probability of these events may be very low, but the expected value of preventing them could be high, as it represents the value of all future human lives.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently funded a Centre for the Study of High Consequence Event Preparedness and Response that involves 21 institutions.

Even if extinction events are improbable, the expected values of countermeasures could be large, as they include the value of all future lives.

Answer 14

We're already in the midst of an extinction event.  We're causing it.  On the scale of geological time, the damage that we've been doing is an instant.

But this is Astronomy and Space.  The highest i'd put it at is 5 in a million, or one in 200,000.

This is a guess.  From actual data, it appears that you are less likely to die from an impact from space than to be shot in the face by d**k Cheney.