How to Read an Asteroid Risk Table Without the Drama

A listed possibility is not a scheduled event

An asteroid risk table is a working scientific product. It records possible impacts consistent with available observations and the models used to interpret them. It should not be read like an airline timetable in which every listed event is expected to happen. The uncertainty is part of the information, not an embarrassing detail hidden behind it.

JPL's Sentry introduction explains that newly observed objects can have a range of possible trajectories and that further observations often eliminate potential impacts. Removal from the list is a normal consequence of improved knowledge. The practical reading habit is to attach a date and source to any reported probability. A copied number without its observation context can outlive the uncertainty that originally produced it.