Sunday, June 6, 2010

Sensationalism, Part II

Ready for more sensationalist news? They have changed the headlines from "spaceship" to "sibling of dinosaur killer"

Phil Plait was right, it was an asteroid collision. And now that we know more, those asteroids belong to the Flora family of asteroids.

Even when some media sources finally agree that it's an asteroid collision, they swing in a different direction and says that this is *drumroll* the BROTHER of the dinosaur killer *cue evil music, (maybe the Imperial March)*

News from io9

From Newsdaily

What does "related" in the headlines mean anyway? How many asteroids are actually in the Flora family? The asteroid is just a rock out of billions. I could equivalently post a news with the headlines: "Lim Yen Kheng is possibly related to Barack Obama. Possible tensions to US-Malaysia ties." Why? Because the odds of that are about the same as
P/2010 A2 being related to the "Dinosaur Killer"

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