#Finetune asteroid hitting earth movie#

However, by simulating the paths of thousands of model asteroids through many possible journeys, they identified which orbital pathways have the highest probability of being taken by the new NEAs. Tracking these objects for 100 million years or more in their computer models, they watched as the tiny gravitational kicks produced by nearby planets slowly moved many main belt asteroids into new orbits, potential collision paths with Earth.īecause the motion of these objects was strongly chaotic, it was difficult for Bottke’s team to predict where each asteroid would go. Bottke’s team used the supercomputing resources at the Cornell Theory Center to follow changes in the orbits of asteroids located in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. From the beginning, they balanced theory with observation. The team of astronomers mapping NEAs includes Bottke from Cornell, Robert Jedicke at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and Jean Marc Petit and Brett Gladman of the Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur, Nice, France. According to Bottke, “One kilometer (about 0.6 of a mile) in size is thought to be a magic number, because it has been estimated that these asteroids are capable of wreaking global devastation if they hit the Earth.” Each year a few of these pass dangerously close to our planet, within a few moon distances. In the June 23 edition of the journal Science, they report that as many as 900 NEAs, each at least a kilometer across, can potentially strike Earth in the future.

Bottke’s team is concerned with the threat these rocks, the so-called near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), pose for us on Earth. Some of these asteroids follow complicated, irregular paths that can intrude upon Earth’s orbit.

We know that many regions of the inner solar system are cluttered with asteroids, leftover pieces of the original building blocks that formed planets like Earth. By simulating the evolution of asteroid orbits with supercomputers at the Cornell Theory Center and comparing their results with the orbits and sizes of real asteroids discovered by telescopes at Kitt Peak, Arizona, they have produced a map showing the paths most likely to carry an errant asteroid to Earth.

#Finetune asteroid hitting earth movie#

What are the odds that an asteroid will come careening across the sky to wreak havoc on Earth? Is this just a movie writer’s fantasy or a real possibility? Cornell astronomer William Bottke heads up an international team of researchers who are grappling with this very question. Since 1987 - Covering the Fastest Computers in the World and the People Who Run Them