Reports of the end of the world exaggerated.

[jackofallgeeks]

If I know my readers (and I don't really claim to), then you won't have
heard about This
article about a German schoolboy who corrected NASA's calculations on the
odds that a killer asteroid will hit the earth in the next 28 years or so.
NASA originially said that there was only a 1 in 450,00 chance that the
asteroid's orbit could be adjusted such that it would hit the earth, but the
Greman kid said that the possibility of said asteroid hitting a
geostationary satellite increases the odds 100 fold, to 1 in 450. The
article says NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) agreed with these
revised odds.

Since you haven't seen that article, I don't have to worry about
pointing you to This
article on The Register, which says not only that the German boy's math was
wrong, but that NASA and the ESA had never agreed to the odds. NASA notes
that while the asteroid WILL pass closer to the earth than the orbit of
geostationary satelites, it's path doesn't cross that orbit. So, as The
Register notes, there's no need to dust off the astroid-busting
space nukes just yet.