Maybe we can still nudge it so it hits the Moon. That would be pretty sweet.
Username/post combo checks out.
The “moon landing hoax” people would have a field day, though - they’d say it was part of the coverup to hide evidence that we had never been to the moon!
I’ve been seeing lots of Sikhote-Alin photos on Facebook for the last few days because of the fall anniversary, so I dug out some of mine. Sikhotes are lumped into two groups, whole individuals and shrapnel. Individuals are completely smoothed from atmospheric ablation but shrapnel has some smoothing but also in jagged, twisted shape where the stress of atmospheric entry tore the solid iron to bits. This 41.8 gram piece of shrapnel preserves especially strong signs of violence on one side in the deep grooves. (The other side has been ablated mostly smooth by being the leading face in an oriented entry.)
Here’s a smaller individual (I don’t remember the size, somewhere around 7 grams) that is completely smoothed.
It isn’t known if Sikhote Alin was a single solid asteroid or a rubble pile (or somewhere it between) but it shows that being an iron didn’t prevent it from being ripped apart in atmo.
I like that idea. It would make for a good test of concept.
Indeed. I didn’t know it’d be back in the neighborhood in 2028 till this thread. Also, having some kind of heavy-lift asteroid-plinker at the ready would be good.
The odds are down to essentially zero. It was fun while it lasted.
It’ not like I want civilization to end, it’s just that all of us getting incinerated together has a “Kumbaya feeling” to it. 
Nice animation here:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/
You can see why there’s a pattern of “first the probability rises, then it quickly drops to near zero”. As time goes on, the zone of uncertainty gets smaller, as one might expect. When Earth is well within the zone of uncertainty, it first occupies a larger space within that zone as the zone shrinks. So the probability goes up. But then the edges of the zone shrink enough that they don’t include Earth at all, and the probability goes to zero.
Based on that anim it seems like the chances were a hella lot higher than 3% right before they dropped. I don’t get it.
It’s hard to tell since you only see a rough density of yellow dots, but most likely they form a normal distribution:
As the distribution narrows, Earth is sliding down on one of the tails. When it’s still well within the center area, it occupies a larger swath. But the tails drop off rapidly. So there’s a particular point in time when the increase in cross-section is exactly countered by the decrease from the height of the distribution when sliding down the tail. And then after that, it falls quite rapidly.
I don’t know how many standard deviations out the Earth at the point that the trend reversed. But eyeballing it, I’d guess 1 to 2. So the density was already much lower than at the start.
This whole thing reminded me of the old “The end of the world” animation.
[Broken link for some swearing]
https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCpjgl2baLs
And some huge meteor is like, “Well, F that” [and moves away from earth to avoid the stupid]
We’re in the Pit. Swearing is allowed. Also relevant:
Shit 
, in this case I looked at the OP and I wonder now why is this in the PIT.
In any case I noticed that I did not break the link properly, so, swears and all.
In fairness the asteroid might have created a pit thus justifying the post placement.
There must have some some radius from the Chicxulub impact where the dinosaur meat was perfectly barbecued from the radiant heat. Must have smelled delicious.
BTW, I just noticed that Google has a cute Easter egg when you search for Chicxulub:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=chicxulub
There is a thread in Cafe Society where crocodile is mentioned. (By me) I don’t think the transition into “chicken” was complete enough for well-charred reptile to fit that bucket.
ISTR wherever google linked to said, when it was 1.9% which is high, that it typically drops. This one wtnt on to hit a record high and I assume a record rise in % before dropping to infinitesimal.
Recalling the “Bart’s Comet” episode of The Simpsons where Bart’s punishment is to join Principal Skinner - apparently a dedicated comet hunter in the early morning (I sttil sometimes quote his line “There’s a four in the morning now?”) , Bart discovers the comet which is absolutely going to hit Springfield, Homer predicts it’ll mostly burn up and be no bigger than a chihuahua’s head when it lands (helpfully a chihuahua is there for scale) and Skinner’s line when Bart asks if he’s ever found anything:
Once. But By the time I got to the phone, my discovery had already been reported by Principal Kohoutek…I got back at him, though… him and that little boy of his.
Also, live from the House of Representatives
Speaker: We are going to approve a bill to evacuate the town of Springfield in the great state of…
Another representative: Waut a second, I want to tack on a rider to that bill. $30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.
Speaker: All in favor of the amended Springfield slash preverted (sic) bill… ? boos and gavel banged - bill defeated!
Newscaster Kent Brockman: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Democracy simply doesn’t work