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The possibility of an asteroid walloping the planet Mars this month is whetting the appetites of Earth-bound scientists, even as they further refine the space rock's trajectory. The space rock in question — Asteroid 2007 WD5 — is similar in size to the object that carved Meteor Crater into northern Arizona some 50,000 years ago and is approaching Mars at about 30,000 miles per hour (48,280 kph). Whether the asteroid will actually hit Mars or not is still uncertain. Such an impact, researchers said, could prove to be a valuable boon for planetary science since NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and a flotilla of other spacecraft are already in position to follow up any impact from orbit. "An impact that we could witness/follow-up with MRO would be truly spectacular, and could tell us much about the hidden subsurface that could help direct a search for life or life-related molecules," said John Rummel, NASA's senior scientist for astrobiology at the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters. Observations of the asteroid between Dec. 29 and Jan. 2 allowed astronomers to slightly lower the space rock's odds of striking Mars to about 3.6 percent (down from 3.9), giving the object a 1 in 28 chance of hitting the planet, according to a Tuesday report from NASA's Near Earth-Object program office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Source : MSNBC Space
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