An asteroid, you know, like the one that flattened a Siberian forest in 1908, has an usually high chance of hitting Mars on January 30, 2008.
"We're used to dealing with odds like one-in-a-million," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near-Earth Object office. "Something with a one-in-a-hundred chance makes us sit up straight in our chairs."
The asteroid that struck Siberia hit with the force of a 15-megaton nuclear bomb and wiped out an estimated 80 million trees. That asteroid has been placed at anywhere between 50 to 1200 meters wide.
The asteroid en route for Mars is about 49 meters across. Fortunately there are no trees on Mars.
"Unlike an Earth impact, we're not afraid, but we're excited,'' Chesley said.
The closest thing to the potential impact was the 1994 collision of parts of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter, which is nowhere near as awesome.
If it hits, the asteroid will likely land near the equator, mostly intact due to the thinness of the Martian atmosphere, and blow a half-mile wide crater out of the Red Planet. The resulting dust plume might be visible to telescopes on Earth depending on where it hit.
And while there are no trees on Mars, there are robots. Luckily, I guess, the little Rover that could will be out of the impact radius, but still fairly close by. We all know the resulting robot snuff film could revitalize NASA's funding, though. So here's hoping the space agency nudges the 'bot closer and turns on some cameras. Alternatively, we could just launch our ninja robots at the asteroid and watch it turn tail in fear.
And before you get worried, remember: Meteors promote biodiversity. In other words, the Martians are coming.
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