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Re: (meteorobs) Probabilities of REALLY BIG fireballs...



Lew writes:
>
>But since we're talking about this thread right now, yours is certainly a
>question that deserves an answer. So how about it: is there anyone up on
>the latest NEO statistics, who can tell us the likelihood of a kilometer+
>sized dense-material impact within the next few centuries? Can someone
>hazard a guess as to whether we really know the answer??

This is not my area of astronomy, but I know a little of what the
specialist say. Ten years ago in my teaching I began to use the statistic
that we had a near miss from a near earth object (NEO) about once every
100,000 years and a hit every 10 to 20 times. That would be a hit every 1-2
million yeras. Most of these NEO would not be "dinosaur killers" but they
would still make a mess of things somewhere depending on their size.
Tungusga could have been our last hit. ANYWAY THAT WAS THE THINKING TEN
YEARS AGO.

A miss is generally taken to mean the NEO pass within the moon's distance
or perhaps a little more of the earth. In the last ten years there have
been several near misses and the old statistics are out the window. The new
ones are anybody's guess.




*****************************************
Terry Richardson
Department of Physics and Astronomy
College of Charleston
Charleston, SC 29424
803 953-8071 phone
803 953-4824 fax
http://www.cofcdot edu/~richardt/
*****************************************



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