Encyclopedia > Torino scale

  Article Content

Torino scale

The Torino Scale is a method for categorizing the impact hazard associated with asteroids and comets. It is intended as a tool for astronomers and the public to assess the seriousness of predictions.

The Torino Scale uses a scale from 0 to 10. Where 0 indicates an object has a negligibly small chance of collision with the Earth or is too small to penetrate the Earth's atmosphere intact. A 10 indicates that a collision is certain, and the impacting object is so large that it is capable of precipitating a global disaster. There are no fractional values or decimal values used.

An object is assigned a 0 to 10 value based on its collision probability and its kinetic energy (expressed in megatons).

The Torino Scale also uses a color code from white to yellow to orange to red. Each color code has an overall meaning:

  • White - "Events having no practical consequences". Category 0.
  • Green - "Events meriting careful monitoring". Category 0 - 1.
  • Yellow - "Events meriting concern". Corresponds to categories 2 - 4.
  • Orange - "Threatening events". Corresponds to categories 5 - 7.
  • Red - "Certain catastrophic collisions". Corresponds to categories 8 - 10.

The Torino Scale was created by Professor Richard P. Binzel and named after a conference in Torino, Italy (Turin).

See also Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Digital Rights Management

... Platform Architecture scheme proposed by Intel and others is an example. So are several laws proposed or already enacted in various jurisidictions (State, Federal, ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 22.8 ms