Comment by killthebuddha

I'm having a weirdly difficult time finding some basic ELI5 answers.

  - What is the probability that this asteroid will hit us?
  - What is the time interval where that probability applies?
  - Do we have a probability distribution for where it might hit? I don't know anything about anything, but I assume we know what *general direction* it's coming from?
  - Do we have a probability distribution for the potential blast radius?

In general, I am very confused by this news because "400m diameter asteroid 3% chance of impact" is something I would expect literally everybody to be talking about all the time. It's also something where if I learned that everything north of Kansas has a 5% chance of getting hit but everything south of Houston has a 1% chance, I'd seriously consider taking an impromptu vacation.