NASA Disputes German Student's Asteroid Impact Math

A German teenager made international news in April 2008 after claiming NASA had miscalculated the odds of asteroid Apophis striking Earth. Nico Marquardt, competing in a regional science fair, argued the true probability was 1 in 450, far above the agency's published figure of 1 in 45,000.

NASA pushed back firmly. Spokesman Dwayne Brown confirmed that Jet Propulsion Laboratory calculations in Pasadena, California had not changed: the Near-Earth Object Program Office placed the risk of an Apophis impact in 2036 at 1 in 45,000 and had no plans to revise it.

The agency also rejected press reports claiming it had told the European Space Agency that Marquardt's math checked out. NASA said it had no contact with the student and had received no correspondence from him at any point.

The source of the student's higher estimate, NASA explained, was an assumption that Apophis would collide with a satellite during a close approach in 2029. The agency said the asteroid's path will not take it through the zone where geosynchronous satellites orbit, making any such collision exceedingly unlikely.

Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in April 2008, in its own words.