Chances You'll Be Killed by an Asteroid in 2009

A computer video circulating the internet has rekindled fears that an asteroid will hit Earth and send mankind the way of the brontosaurus. Based on NASA projections, there is indeed a chance that such an asteroid will impact Earth in the next year.

It is 1 in 2,518,072

This number is derived from NASA calculations of the likelihood of a strike by any one of the six substantial Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) whose current course could intersect our planet's in 2009. The most likely of the bunch, an NEO named 2008 AO112, alone has a 1 in 4,000,000 chance of impacting Earth. In other words, there's a 99.999975% chance the thing will miss us.

By comparison, in the new year, based on recent National Safety Council data, chances are less that you will be killed by an asteroid than by the following:

Motor vehicle accident: 1 in 6,539

Exposure to noxious substances: 1 in 12,554

Assault by firearm: 1 in 24,005

Accidental drowning: 1 in 82,777

Exposure to smoke, fire or flames: 1 in 92,745

Exposure to forces of nature (lightning, flood, storms, etc.): 1 in 136,075

Falling out of bed or off other furniture: 1 in 329,819

Choking on food: 1 in 343,179

Air and space transport accidents: 1 in 502,554

Exposure to electric current, radiation, temperature, and pressure: 1 in 705,969

Being bitten, stung or crushed by another person or animal: 1 in 1,841,659

Conclusion: It would be statistically unwise to sell your home (your chances of selling it aside) and use the proceeds for a pre-asteroid splurge in the tropics. Alternatively, if you are considering fleeing Earth, you are more likely to die by spacecraft accident than by asteroid. And if you do so anyway, given the chance of being bitten, stung or crushed by another person or animal, your chances are even worse if you bring company.

Follow Keith Thomson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kqthomson

Comments

[Castro Max]

Wow, the earth is many more times as likely to be hit by an asteroid this year than you are to win first prize in the lottery. Think about that before you waste your money!

[wadenelson1]

If it will shut Rush Limbaugh up, I'm all for the asteroid.

[dragon82a]

After being dateless for 4 years. No matter what I do. I now have something to really look forward to for 2009.

[Eres]

With your sense of humor, I hope 2009 is your lucky year :-)

[BlueKansas]

Funny, but I can obsess on the possibility of a tornado tearing our house apart, but the thought of an asteroid landing in our backyard doesn't phase me a bit.

That's probably because if an asteroid hits, I won't be condemned to dealing with contractors afterwards.

[JesusOnCrack]

Are you folks SERIOUS about this? I mean even putting one second of thought to piece of rock coming at us? WE HAVE LIVED THROUGH EIGHT YEARS OF BUSH/CHENEY.....an asteroid would be like getting on a cruise ship. What a welcome relief to be destroyed so we can start over.

[Chubbster]

Anything can happen, particularly the unexpected, anything can emerge at anytime. That's just how it is.

[WilliePilgrim]

Regardless of the odds, it is a certainty that someday a planetary or cosmic event that will devastate our planet will happen again, just as it has in the past. We may not know the exact extent, nor time, nor even the exact cause (no one's mentioned gamma ray bursts or intergalactic dust dimming the sun, magnet pole flipping, or the recurrance of flood basalts, all of which (and more) are contenders for cataclysmic depopulating events, but we should bear in mind that our technologically advanced culture is rapidly approaching the level where even in a worst case scenario, we will be able to avoid a bleak future for at least a segment of the earth and its populations, avoiding total annihilation and preserving the gift of knowledge that is our species collective legacy, but it requires that we continue to work towards a future in outer space. As advanced as we are now, there are even greater technologies awaiting us and our species abilities have barely been touched. We are limited by our imaginations in harnessing the energy that is all around us. I'm optimistic that in the near future we will unlock the secrets of the hydrogen atom, and matter-antimatter and create islands of human culture and earth biology in regions spreading out from our cradle earth. Being able to detect and deflect the "small stuff", the stuff that could send us back to another dark age without quite wiping us out, is a very good idea.

[Cogitoe]

The author misses the entire point. It is not the relative probability that an astroid will kill any particular person like you or me it is that it will kill a large percent of the population. Here is a recent example:

ScienceDaily (July 3, 2008) — Geological evidence found in Ohio and Indiana in recent weeks is strengthening the case to attribute what happened 12,900 years ago in North America -- when the end of the last Ice Age unexpectedly turned into a phase of extinction for animals and humans – to a cataclysmic comet or asteroid explosion over top of Canada.

Worried now?

[cloudmaker]

Thanks, I need that. After watching the History Channel's recent special on
biblical predictions it's nice to get some reassurance that I will not soon be
killed by a meteor, drowned in a tsunami, burned alive by a gamma burst,
choked to death by the smoke of a distant volcano, or ravaged by a new
and unexpected plague. I think I'll go have breakfast.

[metoo]

Be careful, don't choke on your bacon!

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

1 in 2,518,072 - What a cosmic coincidence, those are also the odds that there'll be enough left in my 401k to buy a case of catfood a month by the time I retire.

[Lochmon]

Hasn't anyone added Disaster Girl to the asteroid video yet?

[OrganOfThought]

Asteroids are anti-American.

[Carolab]

What a relief!

[Chip W]

But what if it happens!?!?!? What if it happens!?!?!?

[LeftRight]

Then you're dead. Nothing to worry about, since you cannot change it!

[research]

We are only tracking an estimated 10% of asteroids.

Nasa is trying for 90% in the next ten years

We cannot reliably predict the path of these object out past a year of two in most cases.

We Can't track comets while they out past Pluto, where they spend most of their time.

Personally, I don't worry about death from Bolide

Bu,t because someday a asteroid will kill all life on Earth when it hits,

The Nations and the World SHOULD spend time and money, over the long haul, to detect and avert such a disaster.

Another good reason to fund NASA.

[SonofLiberty1]

I always wondered about how they figured % on these things... Lot of space out there.
I personally think there are a heck of a lot more than they think.