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Kelly Beatty
HOMEPAGE NEWS by Kelly Beatty

Odds of Mars Strike Now 1-in-25

A week ago I told you about a small asteroid with roughly a 1% (1-in-75) chance of hitting Mars late next month.

Asteroid to hit Mars?
Estimated to be about 150 feet across, the small asteroid designated 2007 WD 5 will pass very close to Mars — and might hit it — when the two cross paths (upper left) on January 30th.
NASA / JPL
Well, the odds of an impact have just gone up!

Earlier today dynamicists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that 2007 WD5 now has a 1-in-25 chance (4%) of striking the Red Planet. They've adjusted the prediction based on the asteroid's serendipitous appearance in three images made November 8th, nearly two weeks before its discovery by the Catalina Sky Survey team on Mount Lemmon in Arizona.

Most likely, 2007 WD5 will miss Mars by about 15,000 miles. But if it should strike, it will do so at about 8½ miles per second on January 30th, within a few minutes of 5:56 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

No observations of the little asteroid have been acquired since December 19th, though new images — and a much better prediction — should be made within the next few days.

Posted by Kelly Beatty, December 28, 2007
related content: Solar system news
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First comments (from 18)

Asteroid hitting Mars

Posted by LS December 28, 2007 At 09:16 PM PST
What will happen if the asteroid does strike Mars?

I actually do the same question

Posted by Tochtli December 28, 2007 At 11:49 PM PST
In an hipotetic case that the asteroid hit martian grounds could be watch by a normal scope or this impact just could be notified to us (amateur astronomers), i dont know by some profesional institution? I addressed this in the first story last week. If the asteroid were to hit, it would create a crater roughly a mile across. This is too small an impact to be observable from Earth, but it would be easy for any of the three spacecraft now orbiting Mars — Kelly Beatty

If it hits

Posted by charles botkin December 29, 2007 At 11:38 PM PST
If the asteroid hits then many amateur scopes should be able to see the debris cloud that is thrown up. That is as long as a large dust storm is not obscuring the event.

Interactive Sky Chart

Posted by ?? December 31, 2007 At 05:11 PM PST
I know that this doesn't pertain to the article, but is anyone else having issues with the interactive sky chart?

Interactive Sky Chart

Posted by Eric Peterson December 31, 2007 At 08:44 PM PST
Since the redesign, I haven't been able to get it to run in Firefox. I have to fire up IE to see it. It used to work flawlessly.

Hitting Mars's Moons??

Posted by Dennis January 1, 2008 At 03:43 PM PST
Aside from missing Mars, what are the chances of 2007WD5 hitting one of Mar's moons. Obviously much smaller targets, but since the asteriod is now closer to missing at 15k, this is in the range of its moons locations. Or is 2007WD5 on a high incline in relation to Mars two moons?

Asteroid Strike

Posted by MIke January 1, 2008 At 04:39 PM PST
Looking at this from a scientific perspective, this would produce a windfall of information. There is much attention on Mars now that we are planning a manned mission. Since there already have three satellites in orbit around the planet,and rovers, a tremendous amount of data would be collected. We already spent billions blasting a comet with an impactor. This could save us a lot of money. I almost feel guilty hoping for an impact, but this would give us much insight into what would happen on earth should such an event occur. It could answer the big question, is there water on Mars? Spectroscopic analysis of the dust cloud would likely reveal composition far deeper than we be able to determine for many years. A tremendous amount of information was collected when Shoemaker-Levy stuck Jupiter. Jupiter is a gas giant. Mars is a solid planet, much like earth. The chances have increase from 1 in 75 to 1 in 25, a four fold increase. I looked at the JPL sight and it said if an impact occured. The latest information is indicating the impact would occur about 12:56AM CST, with no lunar interference.

One more thing

Posted by MIke January 2, 2008 At 11:09 AM PST
I know the article said we couldn't see the crater with a amateur telescope, but could we see the flash? Flashes caused by much smaller meteors hitting the lunar surface have been observed.

OOps on the time

Posted by Mike January 2, 2008 At 04:52 PM PST
Its 2:56AM PST, so that would be 4:46AM CST, Not 12:46AM as I wrote above. Mars will have set by then in the Central Zone, but they may be able to see it in the Pacific Zone.

Opps On time

Posted by Mike January 2, 2008 At 05:00 PM PST
Its 2:56AM PST, so that will be 4:46AM CST, not 12:56 as I wrote above. It will have already set in the Central Time Zone. It may still be visible in the Pacific Zone, though. As far as the Interactive Sky Chart, I think its broke. I have been getting an error message since Monday.Something about the database is full.

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