93% of Large Near Earth Asteroids Found and Pose No Risk

NEOWISE a survey with NASA’s orbiting Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has discovered 93% of asteroids larger than 1 kilometer orbiting the Sun within 195 million kilometres of Earth’s orbit. None of these pose a danger, although there are other medium sized ones that might, but the potential damage from those wouldn't threaten extinction.

From Astronomy Now...

The world is a safer place today after it was announced that 93 percent of all near-Earth asteroids larger than a kilometre have been identified, and none of the them pose a risk to Earth.

Astronomy Now

Now for the other 7 percent!

This doesn't make much sense to me.

If you haven't found the other 7% yet, than how do you know it's 7%?

Couldn't it be 8%? We didn't find it so how could we know for sure?

This is jumping to an interesting conclusion which I cannot quite agree with without some sort of rational explanations.

Also, the world isn't any safer because some people decided to claim it was. They don't know how safe or unsafe the future is, they are not prophets.

The mere fact they haven't located some of them, should indicate that they lack critical information/data and are in the dark about the ultimate reality ongoing as well.

That's a major problem with institutions and voices from "authority". They are still fallible human voices with limited databases to work with, they simply do not have the means to know for sure.

reply to post by muzzleflash


From the article:

The NEOWISE survey brings the total number of known near-Earth asteroids larger than a kilometre wide to 911, with an estimated total population of 981

So yes you're right it is an estimated figure and it could 8% or more or even less. The point is that they've located 911 of the large asteroids and plotted their orbits and found them to be safe for a 100 years or so. As for the survey team not being prophets, I don't understand the relevence. I'd rather trust a scientist than a soothe-sayer.

What about the other 7%? I wouldn't get happy until they said 100%....

reply to post by v1rtu0s0


Well 93% is better 0% The survey's not complete. I don't know if they'll ever be able to say with any certainty that they've found them all, but I'll take 93% for now.

how the hell do they know about something they haven't discovered??

science FAIL....

elementary logic: if you haven't discovered something, then you don't know its quantity...

Originally posted by My.mind.is.mine
how the hell do they know about something they haven't discovered??

science FAIL....

elementary logic: if you haven't discovered something, then you don't know its quantity...

The method is explained in the article. It's a shame they didn't mention the margin of error I grant you, but I'll let Amy Mainzer who led the NEOWISE study from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Answer. “The results substantially reduce the risk of an impact without warning.”

Note she doesn't say that there is NO risk, she says it REDUCES the risk.

How is that 'science fail'?

NEOWISE a survey with NASA’s orbiting Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has discovered 93% of asteroids larger than 1 kilometer orbiting the Sun within 195 million kilometres of Earth’s orbit. None of these pose a danger

reply to post by Insomniac


so only 7% of the large asteroids pose a threat to earth? nice to know.

i am assuming they are calculating the percentage that is not a threat out of the ones they have found so far.

Originally posted by lifeform11

NEOWISE a survey with NASA’s orbiting Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has discovered 93% of asteroids larger than 1 kilometer orbiting the Sun within 195 million kilometres of Earth’s orbit. None of these pose a danger

reply to post by Insomniac

 

so only 7% of the large asteroids pose a threat to earth? nice to know.

i am assuming they are calculating the percentage that is not a threat out of the ones they have found so far.

The article and my previous replies state that the survey is ongoing. They haven't found the other 7% yet. They may or may not pose a risk.

reply to post by Insomniac


i assumed they were saying that out of the ones they have found so far only 93% of them pose no threat.

that is messed up if they are calculating a percentage when they have not even found the others yet, how can they know it is 93% if that is the case, to know it is 93% you must know how many are left and therefore been able to find them in the first place.

so what you are saying and what they should of said is that 100% of the ones found so far pose no threat to earth?

reply to post by lifeform11


Well yes... That's what the title of the thread says. 93% found and pose no threat.

reply to post by Insomniac


so they need to find another 7% that they have not found yet? how do they know there is only 7% left if they have not found them?

Originally posted by lifeform11
reply to post by Insomniac

 

so they need to find another 7% that they have not found yet? how do they know there is only 7% left if they have not found them?

This question is answered five posts above yours.

In 1998 NASA was issued a command to identify at least 90 percent of the large asteroids that orbited the Sun within 195 million kilometres of Earth’s orbit and which could pose a risk to Earth. The NEOWISE survey brings the total number of known near-Earth asteroids larger than a kilometre wide to 911, with an estimated total population of 981.

reply to post by Insomniac


so they are estimating the amount of asteroids and basing the figures on that estimation with the ones they have found so far (911). it makes more sense now but those figures could still be wrong due to the fact there might be more or less asteroids than what they have estimated. so for all we really know they may of really found 98% already or even 73%, so 93% at the moment means nothing untill they have found them all.

and if they employ the same type of people who estimate my gas bill, the figures could well be way off.

reply to post by lifeform11


Ha ha! I sincerely hope they're not the gas bill people too ! Yes it's a shame they didn't include a margin of error, but to have found 911 safe (for now) asteroids is pretty good going and it would be obvious to them that they've found most of them, so 7% remaining shouldn't be too far off the mark.

Originally posted by Insomniac


Note she doesn't say that there is NO risk, she says it REDUCES the risk.

How is that 'science fail'?

Discovering this fact does not reduce any risk.

It only means we became aware that the risk was lower than originally thought. And even that assumption could prove disastrously wrong at some point.

No risks were ever reduced. We are only just now learning the facts about what risks already existed.

reply to post by Insomniac


You know what I found to be an uneasy coincidence?

That we keep using the figure "911" in relation to the topic of potential asteroid disaster scenarios.

That is quite the coincidence I must say.

They should have waited to find another one to release this story. That was it would be 912 instead, and the coincidental connotations would be avoided.

ummm

doesnt that mean roughly that 7 in ever 100 large NEOs do pose a risk of danger to us?

Originally posted by ignant
ummm

doesnt that mean roughly that 7 in ever 100 large NEOs do pose a risk of danger to us?

No, it means that an estimated 7% of the large asteroids are still to be found, As such their risk to us hasn't been assessed yet.

reply to post by muzzleflash


That's a good point - I guess symantics aren't her strong point!