> These percentages are of course tiny and pose no cause for alarm
Do people really think like this? Fairly small probabilities of catastrophic events don't generally result in a negligible expected value.
Do people really think like this? Fairly small probabilities of catastrophic events don't generally result in a negligible expected value.
To put another way, the expected value you should be evaluating isn't something like the megatons of a strike but the difference in outcomes of a strike or miss vs your actions. I would guess there are few meaningful actions you could take (you have no control over or knowledge of where it would strike, if it strikes). With the delta in outcomes close to zero, no alarm is reasonable.
You might review your emergency evacuation plan (or create one if you don't have one). It's very unlikely to be needed in this case, but for all causes over your lifetime, the chances it turns out useful are probably not negligible.
Here's Scott Manley from two weeks ago.
There's nothing to do now or for the layman, though, as you said. Also, this opens the fun possibility that people could redirect an asteroid into a city, but unless they can do it secretly or deniably, nuclear weapons are probably easier.
Its more like a monty hall problem, each door either contains an asteroid collision, or proof that its not going to hit earth. But we dont have perfect information on the size, albedo, spin or orbit of the asteroid so most doors are closed. Each time we open a door and do not find the asteroid, the probability of finding proof of an earth collision AND a proof that its going to miss will go up.
Calculating a spacecraft/asteroid trajectory is already precise enough to land a mars rover in the correct target area. But we know the exact properties of the spacecraft so all the doors are open.
I still think the odds of something more destructive happening is higher - earthquake-tsunamis, hurricanes, nuclear warfare, large volcanoes, covid25, etc.
I didn't spend the energy stressing over the initial wave of media hype surrounding the first published probability.
A few days of waiting for rational thought to prevail helps.