Asteroid May Hit Mars in Next Month

[b_justb]

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Mars could be in for an asteroid hit. A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the Red Planet on Jan. 30, scientists said Thursday.“These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track … threatening asteroids,” said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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[DaveBj]

Nothing against Mars, but I hope it happens. We need to see the results when something like that occurs. The Levy-Shoemaker impacts on Jupiter were on a gas giant, and they occurred over the horizon.

 

[Milliardo]

Yes, it would be interesting to see what the effect would be on Mars, so we can also anticipate what will happen if ever something like this comes to us.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

It might give us some clues to what would happen on earth, but an earth impact would have major differences.

Mars has a negligible atmosphere. The earth atmospheric effects would be rather extensive I suspect. This would include both the direct effects - heating etc - and the effect of long term atmospheric retention of debris.

Mars has no oceans. The odds are around two to one than an incoming body would impact in the ocean on earth. This would create a massive tsunami. I don’t know what the direct effects on the ocean would be.