[meteorite-list] Astronomers Survey Sky For Big Asteroids

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:55:46 2004
Message-ID: <200201142041.MAA10607_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

>
> If the odds of dying of an asteroid/comet strike are 20,000 to 1, wouldn't
> that mean that 12,500 people (out of the USA's 250,000,000) figure to die
> that way?
>
> There is something wrong with this (surely), what is it?
>

There is nothing wrong with it, but you have to be aware you're looking at
an average. People die from plane crashes every year. With an asteroid impact,
you can go many years (perhaps centuries) before anyone get killed, but when it
does happens, thousand or millions are killed at once.

Ron Baalke
Received on Mon 14 Jan 2002 03:41:07 PM PST