Why aren't people worried about asteroid DA14?

Not really. It's not like mathematics and physics are arbitrary, or like asteroids just change their path by magic. Accepting that it will miss us requires no faith, only a bit of scientific literacy. It actually takes faith to presume that there is some means for it to significantly alter its path between now and 15/2/13.

It's also only 45 meters across. Even in the event of a collision, that's hardly a dinosaur-killer.

Because it is too small. 45 meters. most of it will burn up.

Small asteroid 2012 DA14 will make an extremely close approach on February 15, 2013. It will pass by Earth at distance of about 27,000 km (17,000 miles/no closer than 0.000181 AU) from the center of the Earth; within about 3.5 Earth radii of the Earth’s surface.

This near-Earth asteroid was discovered on February 22, 2012 by LaSagra Observatory in the mountains of Andalusia in southern Spain. Asteroid 2012 DA14 is thought to be about 45 meters in diameter and his estimated mass about 130,000 metric tons.

The orbit has been compoted.

It will miss earth by about 35,000 km (3 diameters).

If it hit there would be a small scale explosion.

It is only 45 meters in diameter.

It would cause a blast similar to the Tungusta event of 1908.

The orbit of DA14 is very similar to that of earth, but it is tilted to the plane of the earth's orbit. It makes one orbit of the sun in slightly more than 1 year.

Presumably it has bee miising the earth for thousands of years, and it will go on missing us.

Actually there is a guarantee that it will miss us. It is pretty easy to figure out an object's orbit. Even if it did hit though, it's a small one. Who cares. Unless it lands basically on you, you'll be fine. Why the Chicken Little attitude?

Asteroids pass by very closely ALL THE FREAKING TIME. Usually, at least in the past, we didn't even know they were there until the already passed by. As astronomers, do you think we immediately called CNN and told them "Dudes, we NEARLY got hit!"? Of course not.

You enjoy the thought of a catastrophe, obviously.

Let's see, if you knew anything about astronomy at all you would know

1. Bodies of this size pass within the Moon's orbit all the time

2. The orbits are throughly predictable - they do not make sudden and unnannounced deviations

3. An impactor of this size could cause fatalities if it exploded over a city. However, even though we think that the world is full of people, over 90% is empty (the oceans are nearly 70%). So, the chances of an impactor of this size causing major destruction are very small.

4. The earth is 12 thousand kms wide - the Moon'a orbit is 760 thousand. That's quite a big miss. Plus you have to think 3D. These things do not come inside Lunar orbit in the same plane as the orbit. The Earth is not like a dart board on a wall. It is like a a dart board hanging inside a sphere of space, and the darts aimed at it (rogue asteroids) have all that massive space to miss us within that sphere of space.

But then I seriously doubt your mind can imagine this, so you just have to take comfort in that NASA and other agencies plotting the orbits of Near-Earth objects know exactly what they are doing.

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One more point - just 20 years ago we would never have known about smaller asteroids passing within Lunar Orbit. A hit would have come as a complete surprise. Since then, NASA has been plotting all the NEOs that could cause us harm. Perhaps you would have preferred it when we didn't know anything?

Nope.

>>Scientists calculate it will miss us but why do people have blind faith?<<

Those two are exclusive. I do not have blind faith, I have scientific literacy. The way objects in space behave has been known and predicted for hundreds of years. We're so good at applying that knowledge we can send a probe out into space to make a close pass of Triton twelve years after launch and have it arrive there bang on time. We can see where the asteroid is, we can see how big it is, we can see where it is going and we can extrapolate its path. It will miss. That's not blind faith, that's scientific understanding.

Two reasons

1. it sn't going to hit us; and

2. it isn't going to hit us

I know that technically this is only one reason but it's such an important reason that it was worth typing twice

Science is not a matter of blind faith, it is a matter of evidence, calculation and observation. My worry is that there are morons out there walking amongst us who seem to be unable to grasp simple facts like this... like you could do anything about it anyway.

Asteroids go by earth all the time closer to the to earth than the Moon is. I REFUSE to live my life in fear of any asteroid BECAUSE I UNDERSTAND THE BASIC LAWS OF PHYSICS. "KNOWLEDGE IS POWER."