Should we be worried about an asteroid collision?
No you should not worry about an asteroid striking the Earth or meeting you on a corner. You would hit at least 20 multi state lotteries before this would happen. Wait until you hit the 19th lottery win then start worrying.
Is there any asteroid on a collision course with earth?
That really depends on what you mean by “on a collision course with Earth”.It’s a statistical certainty that Earth will be hit by a sizeable asteroid some time in the future. It’s been hit many times before, there are still many asteroids that cross Earth’s orbit - it’s just a matter of time. The bigger the asteroid, the less likely it is to hit Earth in any given period of time, though; that’s another statistical thing. There are lots of little asteroids, but relatively few big ones, so it stands to reason that big impacts would be more rare.Right now, there is a rock orbiting around the Sun that will one day collide with Earth. Maybe this rock’s orbit already crosses the orbit of Earth, and we’re just waiting for the moment when Earth and the asteroid find themselves at the same place at the same time. Maybe this rock is further out, but a chance encounter with Jupiter will alter its orbital path and send it zooming down into the inner solar system. We just don’t know.We can say this with certainty: no scientists know of any asteroids that are due to strike Earth in the near future. So you don’t have to worry about it…and you may never have to worry about it. As I said before, large impacts are super-rare. Many, many generations can go by without ever experiencing a severe asteroid impact.
How could you survive an asteroid collision.?
If a asteroid large enough to not burn up in the atmosphere was to hit earth, then all life would die. even if the asteroid was to land in the ocean, all life would die. The people who in the first few days or so of it who are in a heat resistant area will survive longer, the people that are farthest away from the impact zone will survive longer, but eventually everyone would die. The temperature on earth would raise to a normal of somewhere in the 100s ( Fahrenheit) the planet would be covered in a large black cloud of ash/dust, which would block light from coming in, also polluting the air. eventually the world would go back to normal, but it would take a long time for that to happen, such as what happened with the dinosaurs, most likely no one would be alive by the time things got better. Unless they had a lifetime worth of resources and a bomb shelter.
Why has earth escaped asteroid collisions for so long and are we due?
First of all, always remember: space is huge and we are tiny. Very few models ever correctly show the scale of the solar system, because it is so vastly huge. The difference in size between the objects and the immense distances between them mean that modellers have to be creative, this one is my personal favourite: If the Moon Were Only 1 PixelAdd the fact that comets have immensely long orbits and that the Earth’s constantly moving as well, it conjures up an image of trying to hit a jet plane with a pea shooter (although, to be fair, this jet plane has a gravitational pull that makes it a tiny tiny bit easier for the pea shooter).So much like Karl Emmanuel Sanchez Laursen , I’m inclined to play the “pure luck” card. The odds of hell raining down upon us simply aren’t that big.But according to some astronomers, this isn’t just due to luck and scale: another mechanism is at work as well. Because Jupiter is so immensely massive, it is hypothesises that it acts as a shield: it reflects and deflects comets in such a way that they stay clear of the Earth.Last year, this theory suffered quite a blow due to an article in Astrobiology disproving some of it. But the hypothesis isn’t dead yet, and it might very well provide a good explanation.Furthermore, I don’t think the question is entirely fair. “escaped asteroid collisions for so long”? Tell that to the poor dinosaurs who died thanks to the Yucatan asteroid.
Have you been worried about asteroids hitting earth? Will you now feel better that there is a new telescope with the sole purpose of hunting asteroids?
Meteorites hit the Earth all the time. Some hit harder than others. The one that collided 66 million years ago, creating the Chicxulub crater, was an extinction event. On the other hand, the continuous gentle rain of sand-sized rock fragments causes no harm at all.Will there be another extinction-grade impact? Yes, without a moment’s doubt.Will it happen in our lifetimes? The statistics say, “Unlikely”, but ask any person with an ultra-rare disease how that word comforts them.Am I worried? No, not really. I’m not party to the current array of defences against extra-terrestrial impactors, so I don’t know how we’ll deflect or destroy an emerging threat. One thing’s for sure: the only thing I could help would be on projects like Zooniverse’s Planet 9, which may well help spot potential impactors whilst looking for long-distance planetoids and large asteroids. You can do that too—you don’t need to be an expert. If you do spot a planetoid, you’ll be named on the research paper announcing it!Do I feel better now there’s a new asteroid-spotting telescope? I’m not sure which telescope this is. Sentinel Space Telescope was canned when NASA withdrew funds. The B612 Foundation is now only looking for small Near-Earth Objects, hardly a protection against big threats, nor giving enough time to react. There is a newly mooted NASA asteroid-spotter, NEOCam, but this won’t launch until 2021 at the earliest, and will have a mission lifetime of only four years.If we had a spotter mission of the quality of Hubble or James Webb, I’d certainly feel a bit better (relatively speaking), but right now we don’t have much that’s useful. We might as well paint a big target roundel on the Earth, for all the effort we’re putting into identifying threats, and defending our one and only planet against them.In the meantime, we’re all just passengers. We may as well get on with life.
Any Need to Worry About Apophis Asteroid?
No ... rest easy in bed tonite. There is no asteroid or comet collision predicted for over 50 years. Orbits can, and do, change with time, if an object comes close to another planet. That is why there is now an ongoing program of monitoring all near earth objects, and to find new ones. I think there is a 5% chance of an impact with one in about 80 years from now. No need to worry about that. Probably the chance of impact will decrease as time passes. But if it is on a collision course we have 80 years to do something about bit. By the way, the bible says nothing about rapture. The bible is in fact merely just another merchant of doomsday. The bible is cleverer than the other doomsday sayers --- because the bible says that date is "to be advised"
If collisions of comet nuclei and asteroids with earth are rare events, why should we be concerned about the possibility of such a collision?
A rare event does not mean it will never occur. There are many examples that would give us an idea to why we should be more attentive to comets and asteroids and their probability of reaching Earth and colliding with it. When crossing a street, for instance, one is careful and looks for any vehicle approaching him. Our solar system has plenty of small-mass objects. The smaller they are the more frequent they fall on Earth. The bigger they are the less frequent they do. It's actually a matter of statistics based on historical events. One particular negative aspect of falling asteroids/comets is that not all can be detected in time. Think of the one that hit Russia in the city of Chelyabinsk on February 15, 2013. No one "expected" there was a celestial body heading there. One more thing. When crossing the street you avoid a car by waiting for it to pass by,,,,,now imagine if you could wait for an asteroid to pass by!!
Do we need to be worried about the asteroid impact.?
No need to, can't do anything about it.