If you listened to the latest Living Space podcast you’ll have heard us talking about the then breaking news that a little asteroid called 2007WD5 had a small chance of hitting Mars. At the time the chance was given as 1 in 75, but new observations which have more tightly constrained its orbit raise that to about 1 in 25. OK, as the Bad Astronomer notes that’s still a 96% chance of nothing, but it’s not yet zero.
Given the fleet of spacecraft we have around the red planet right now, this would be an amazing impact to watch; you can even imagine Opportunity seeing the meteor in the sky as it headed for impact, with the crash watched by Mars Express and MRO. It’s a strange shift in perspective; instead of hoping Earth is out of the way, I’m hoping those odds narrow further and January 30th brings a spectacular impact.
Update : Odds now 1 in 28
Update 2 : Mars is safe.
Alice Sheppard on December 29, 2007
Poor Mars!
Nick Cross on December 31, 2007
I’m with Chris on this. It would be great to see an impact on a terrestrial planet (NOT Earth). We could learn a lot from this.
Alice Sheppard on December 31, 2007
I know, I was just kidding!
It would be particularly interesting if it came near enough to Spirit or Opportunity that they could have a look at the crater and underlying rocks. Rather like looking for fossils on earth.
Stuart Atkinson on January 1, 2008
If that rock lands close enough to either Spirit or Oppy for them to be able to drive to its impact point, there’s a real danger they’d be damaged or even destroyed by either the shock wave from the impact or by pieces of debris from the blast falling on them. I’d be much happier for the impact to happen a gazillion miles away from the rovers and leave it to the orbiting probes to study the crater!
chrislintott on January 1, 2008
I believe the projected impact is north of Opportunity’s current position, and it won’t be anywhere near the rovers. I still wonder idly if Opportunity would see the meteor, though. I’ll worry more about it if and when the odds drop some more.
KPM on January 2, 2008
Surely the dust cloud would pose a threat to the MER’s even though they are some way off , we all know what the spring storms nearly did to Oppy in particular. If it did happen it would be fun to get there with a new probe just to dig around the resulting crater.