No Big Bang: Asteroid Will Miss Mars - Astronomers bummed.

POSTED BY QBert on Jan 11 under 2012, Newz, Science/Tech, ufo

mars asteroid

By Associated Press

7:41 AM EST, January 11, 2008

PASADENA, Calif.
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The possibility of a collision between Mars and an approaching asteroid has been effectively ruled out, according to scientists watching the space rock.

Tracking measurements of asteroid 2007 WD5 taken from four observatories have greatly reduced uncertainties about its Jan. 30 close approach to Mars so that the odds of impact have dropped to 1 in 10,000, the Near-Earth Object Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a posting on its Web site Thursday.

Scientists said the best estimate was for the asteroid to pass at a distance of more than 16,000 miles from the surface of Mars, or at worst, no closer than 2,480 miles.

The asteroid was discovered in November. Initial observations of its orbit raised the odds of an impact to as high as 1 in 25 before further refinements came in.

The asteroid is big enough to have blasted a half-mile-wide crater in the cold and dusty Martian surface, an event that astronomers would have liked to observe.

The NEO program normally looks for asteroids and comets that could pose a hazard to Earth.

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GOD DAMNIT. I was really hoping this would happen. How often do you get to observe (or at least watch the news about) a giant asteroid hitting a neighboring (better them than us) planet? Plus, it would given us a chance to more directly observe the immediate effects of an asteroid of such a large size making and impact into a planet. Planet Earth had a few near misses in recent times, and I’ve read that come 2012, we’re due for some rather close brushes with giant asteroids that could spell world wide disaster. Niburu cometh.