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0 pointsmyrmidon1y ago0 comments

Good point, but I think those are "worth" less from a risk-analysis PoV: 1km diameter is apparently about 200 times more likely (1/500000 years) according to wiki, but would need to kill 40M people to match the extinction-level asteroid risk (so basically-- unmitigated hit on Tokyo or bust).

To be honest, I think the 1km diameter range might still be a major fraction of the actual risk, because the estimates around "human exctinction every 100Ma" are probably much too pessimistic.

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ianburrell1y ago

There is also a difference between mass extinction asteroid like dinosaurs, and one that destroys human civilization. Smaller one wouldn't extinct humanity but would kill most of the people alive. 1km might be big enough to do that depending on the amount of dust and cooling.

adgjlsfhk11y ago

they may be worth less, but each class of them bumps up the value of detection since detection helps against all of them.

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