Asteroid 2011 AG5 Will Definitely Miss Earth

[Dirty Apple]

When all else fails, go to Neil DeGrasse Tyson.


The whole interview is magnificent, but skip to 50:00 for the Apophis question.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

Pardon me, but:
"Asteroid 2011 AG5 Will Definitely Miss Earth"
...then just below that:
"[sic] ...has a lower chance of hitting earth."

You do know those are two separate things right? "No chance" isn't the same as "lower chance."

I was gonna say... Looks like ya beat me to it.

I guess 28 years away isn't too bad even if it does hit the Earth. As some have said, it isn't likely it would cause global extinction and technology has improved drastically over the last 20 years so a future 20+ years of progress could lead to some form of salvation being created. Even if all else does fail and the world is screwed, I'll be in my 40's at that time so I'd have reached the point in my life where things get a little repetitive and I'd be able to say I'd have had a life well lived, so no biggie.

 

[McMullen]

Ramming a satellite into it (as has been done before) early on would be enough to nudge it onto a safer trajectory. No need for explosives.

Wait, what? When did this happen?

 

[Callex]

at 450 feet its not even worth worrying about, with our luck it will probably just explode in the atmosphere giving some near by town a pebble shower

Air bursts can actually be very dangerous! Because of the kinetic energy an asteroid this big would have, it would go off like a nuclear weapon. Back in the early 1900's a 300ft meteor was believed to have exploded over Russia in what is known as the Tunguska Event - flattening 2000 square kilometres of forest!

Wait, what? When did this happen?

It was done in 2005 by the aptly named 'Deep Impact' satellite. They smashed a mass into a comet to analyse the material in its interior. While it was only a small payload, it still slightly altered the comet's momentum. You'd need to scale it up a fair amount, but we certainly have the technology to put an object on a collision course with an asteroid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_(spacecraft)