Duck!! Not.

most folks dont realize that comets are much more dangerous to this planet than meteors ,which can be seen/studied while still far away ,therefor affording us earthlings with a bit of time to figure out what to do .
comets are invisible sometimes until they get close enough to a star for a tail to be seen ,and by then it would probably be too late to do much .
one thing to note about such galactic collisions , statistically speaking this planet is overdue for such an event according to most astronomers so it wouldnt surprise me much if the both the kid (450 miles) and the scientists (45k miles ) were both wrong…

Patrick — The Earth’s gravity has already been included in the calculations.

Yea well I’m going with the kid. We’re overdue for a galactical event so says science. Hopefully by then I’ll be dead and won’t care much about what goes on here.

OMG! It may NOT hit us! We stopped the satellite, can we stop this?

As long as no damn Bruce Willis movies come out of this, I don’t care.

I call dibbs on being the cult leader for “Apophis 4/13/36.” Join me if you wish. I’ll bring the koolaid!

please people, they just wanna us to think that this might happen and some wizz kid comes along and trys to be a brain and be smarter, one good story. hmmm….

acey4utosay
You could add another 2,000 satellites in orbit and the odds wouldn’t significantly change.

The Mayans didn’t say the world ended – just some people interpret their calendar ending that way. And I’m not a bit worried about this thing. The aliens living here in the Oceans, on the dark side of the moon, and in New York City and Hollywood won’t let that happen.

Wow, spiritual ducks, cookies and koolaid? Count me in, it’s BBQ time.

Well,
It seems like from some of the posts in here, it seems like from the wordage we have alot of Blasphemers. People make a joke or a mockery of something serious as an asteroid that could wipe out civilization.
Those who could be destroyed I hope will get their heart right with God, if any dangerous asteroid hits because when the End Times come, it will be Jesus reigning King on Earth and the times of Armageddon to come. I believe in Christ, so that’s why I said what I did. Laugh if you want, but I don’t subject to joking matters when serious stuff like this is talked about.
no comment

I make some good stuffed mushrooms. They go well with any meat.
Anyway. I was wondering when the doom and gloom would return Ned. It’s been too long without any word of our impending demise. Nice to see you still giving us fair warning. Even 20 plus years in advance. Whos your boss? I think it’s time for a raise!
It is neat that a 13 year old boy took so much interest in this subject to do such calculations. This is a good thing folks. If he took the time and energy and did this sort of thing now, just think what this kid can do after he’s gotten himself a formal education. Most kids his age here in the States are sitting on their butts playing video games or myspace. Congrats to the kid.

I don’t think NASA was outsmarted. They were just taking the basic data they had and making a probability based on it.
As someone else said, the boy took one of many outside externalities and imposed it upon the formula. To his calculations based on the information he gave it, he calculated a different outcome. Was he wrong? Certainly not, but it doesn’t mean NASA isn’t right either.
I think it is cool that this young kid was able to take such an interest though. Hopefully he’s working for the good guys when he’s older.

NASA doesn’t deny that this kid was not accurate in his math. They just infer that he accounted for factors that they did not.
Regardless, the kid will probably scooped up and sent underground to spend the remainder of his days working for some government think tank.

The Mayan calender ends on Dec. 21, 2012 and this asteroid will not matter. The reason it ends on that date, some scientists theorize, is because the Sun, the Earth, and the center of the Milky Way galaxy all line up. Those scientists speculate that a magnetic shift will occur once Earth passes that horizon, and Earths’ magnetic poles will realign themselves. The shifting of the poles would trigger the Earths’ mantle to shift violently as well and that would be about it for humanity as we know it. Our sheer numbers may prevail, but if this theory is true, it would be the end of modern civilization.

this kid has some talent

Whatever the chances – they are a lot better than winning the lottery. That should be disturbing.

Just to make sure people are keeping this in perspective, in the US, you have a 1 in 6,801 chance of dying in an auto accident in the next year. Lifetime odds are 1 in 87. There is a 1 in 42 chance for you to die from a non-auto accident during your life.
The one in 45,000 risk of the asteroid is pretty remote… The kid’s figures aren’t realistic, because they don’t include the odds of hitting a satellite, which is as NASA said very remote. Also, most satellites are rather light and would not have a significant amount of mass to affect the trajectory of Apophis in the short distance of it’s passage. Apophis would also have to hit the satellite in exactly the right way to alter the trajectory in a way that would direct it toward earth. The impact could result in any random change in Apophis’s direction. Most of which would result in it headed away from earth. We might as well assume there is a greater chance that it might hit earth due to the extremely slim chance it could bump another small asteroid or comet on it’s way toward us…. Just be glad you’re alive now. As I said above you, your spouse, and your kids dying in an auto accident is more likely than the highest predictions for Apophis hitting us. Also, for the guy talking about the magnetic poles shifting, it happens all the time. Geologist have read gradual deviations of the poles occurring constantly through history. There is no threat that their slow shift will affect us significantly.

We’ll blow ourselves up long before this anyway.

All of these probabilities are completely meaningless. Either it hits or it doesn’t. There isn’t really anything else now is there.
I mean seriously, what does 1 in 450 mean anyway? 450 whats?

Yes, GMike-the magnetic poles have shifted literally hundreds of times over time and the earth’s still here and life still lives. So that movie “The Core” wasn’t such an accurate documentary after all. (Although it was worth it just for seeing the arrogant scientist dictating notes for his next book 10 feet away from a Nuke about to go off!;-)
Indeed the next shift seems to be already starting as small pockets of “anti-field” that will grow, merge and spread.
Whether that results in a period of NO field to be followed by a growing field of opposite polarity is a question that will answer itself whether there’s anything conscious to pay attention or not.
It’s also likely that such shifts DO cause disruption in life if only because the cosmic radiation rains down indiscriminately instead of preferentially to the poles and will increase mutation rates accordingly.
Which in fact can be a ‘good thing’ in general and on balance and in the long run but that either way probably lacks the urgent sexiness of a meteor collision, mile high tsunami or alien invasion of P.O.’ed 8 foot black overlords.