In article ,
Gavin Whittaker wrote:

In uk.sci.astronomy Gareth Slee writted:
: Million to One chance of a collision apparently.
: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3200019.stm

from which:

"The chances of a catastrophe are likely to become even slimmer once
more measurements of the asteroid's orbit have been made."

If this is true, shouldn't astronomers increase the number of
measurements?

WELL, WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY'RE DOING? Do you think they'll never
ever make another observation of this object? Duh!

However, to be as useful as possible, the observation needs to be
as much separated in time as possible. And there are two ways
to accomplish this:

1. Make further observations of the object during a long time.

2. Identify the object in images on films or plates taken a long time
ago.

2. is much faster than 1. .....


If we look REALLY hard, we might be able to push it into
Jupiter.

:-) .....no! The uncertaintly of the orbit isn't quite THAT large....

Schrodinger had nothing on this one...


ATB, Gavin
--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/
http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/