An Asteroid Is Coming !

Heat84

But its only 180 feet in diameter.

'City-killer' asteroid has a 1-in-43 chance of smashing into Earth in 2032, NASA says

I wonder if the odds of it hitting are actually 50/50 but they're saying 1 in 43 so we don't panic.

The article comments are an interesting read too.

takeahike

Heat84
'That's impact probability zero folks!' Earth safe from 'city-killer' asteroid 2024 YR4 .

"Asteroid 2024 YR4 has now been reassigned to Torino Scale Level Zero, the level for 'No Hazard' as additional tracking of its orbital path has reduced its possibility of intersecting the Earth to below the 1-in-1000 threshold."

Time to breathe a sigh of relief. The asteroid that once posed the greatest impact risk to Earth in recorded history now has an effective 0% chance of striking our planet. The probability of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth was reduced to zero thanks to new data collected on Sunday, Feb. 23.

Discovered in Dec. 2024, 2024 YR4 quickly climbed to the top of NASA's Sentry Risk table, at one point having a 1 in 32 chance of hitting Earth. This elevated it to Level 3 on the Torino scale, a system used since 1999 to categorize potential Earth impact events.

An illustration shoes asteroid 2024 YR4 making a close passage of Earth (Image credit: Robert Lea [created with Canva])

takeahike

Heat84

Maybe We Won’t End Up Like the Dinosaurs. NASA has taken a major step toward protecting Earth from dangerous asteroids.

broknsymetry

You should place a bet - you could make a killing.

WalterDnes

This Youtube video is about Apophis, but it raises a point that few people notice. Even if it "only hit the moon instead", we could still feel major impacts here on earth. Such an impact would kick up a lot of debris, some of which would impact planet earth, causing various degrees of damage...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1wN6TxTWrY

Astyanax

WalterDnes

What will happen if Apophis impacts the Moon? Is NASA concerned?

FF to 11:00 if you want to hear the guy finally start to answer his own question. 🙄

btlman1980

WalterDnes This Youtube video is about Apophis, but it raises a point that few people notice. Even if it “only hit the moon instead”, we could still feel major impacts here on earth. Such an impact would kick up a lot of debris, some of which would impact planet earth, causing various degrees of damage…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1wN6TxTWrY

Astyanax What will happen if Apophis impacts the Moon? Is NASA concerned?

FF to 11:00 if you want to hear the guy finally start to answer his own question. 🙄

First it looked like “city killer” asteroid 2024 YR4 might hit the Earth. Then later refinement of its orbit put us in the clear but gave the asteroid a 4.3 percent chance of hitting the Moon in 2032. Now, two independent analyses, using the latest James Webb Space Telescope observations, confirm that even that won’t happen. ☹

https://www.livescience.com/space/asteroids/nasa-updates-odds-that-city-killer-asteroid-2024-yr4-will-hit-the-moon

Heat84

I think it was in the comments of that article that someone said that asteroid's trajectory could be changed by Earth's gravity if it got close enough. So if you calculate the future path for everytime it passes near Earth, it might not be right. Is that 1 in 43 factoring Earth altering(or not altering) the trajectory of the asteroid?

Astyanax

takeahike

takeahike ['That's impact probability zero folks!'

Now you know it's guaranteed to hit us! It's just their way of patting us on our heads and not instill panic and mayhem that would ensue.

Just look at the size of that thing! It's as big as the moon! Talk about BS-ing us!

😜

broknsymetry

Yes, but are we safe from ourselves?

takeahike

broknsymetry Yes, but are we safe from ourselves?

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Rich221976

The sky is falling the sky is falling.

Couldn't resist. Should have but didn't

takeahike

Astyanax Now you know it's guaranteed to hit us! It's just their way of patting us on our heads and not instill panic and mayhem that would ensue.

Just look at the size of that thing! It's as big as the moon! Talk about BS-ing us!

Maybe we'll suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs did 66 million years ago. But for that asteroid we almost certainly not be here and the dinosaurs would still be running things as they did for the 180 million years prior. What new forms of life would then evolve as we did after that asteroid remains to be seen, but I'm not so sure that that would necessarily be a bad thing considering our record of atrocities during our existence for depending on who you believe a mere 60 to 200 thousand years (with of course virtually all the real bad stuff occurring just in the last two to six thousand years, a mere flash in the pan of time) and not knowing what might come next at any time vs. the dinosaurs' 180 million years without any apparent animal produced catastrophes. See How an asteroid ended the age of the dinosaurs and What was the worst day the dinosaurs ever had?

MacLeech

NASA's JPL Center for Near Earth Object Studies: Impact Risk Page will give you all more info to chew on:
https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/intro.html

Following links for 2024 YR4 gets you to this page:
https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/details.html#?des=2024%20YR4
That shows this summary, among other data:

It's down to 27th on the Sentry impact probability list today.

Somewhat-Reticent

Getting converted to petroleum seems like a pretty bad day.

px_eliezer_

Somewhat-Reticent

I dunno, the way things are lately, it can't be soon enough. 🙁

Heat84

@takeahike "#p15081

Seriously? Pool is the chosen asteroid mitigation method right now?

I prefer this method:

Another involves putting a probe in orbit around an asteroid and allowing the gravitational push-and-pull between the two objects to change the asteroid’s path.

What about a phaser like in Star Trek(AKA a particle weapon)? Is it possible to vaporize(Or whatever a phaser on Star Trek does) something? Probably not.

What about knocking an asteroid out of phase so it passes through Earth instead of hitting it? That's another Star Trek concept. On an episode of TNG, that was combined with cloaking to turn 2 people(LaForge and Ro Laren) into ghosts. Any chance changing an object's phase isn't total science fiction? Alot of things in Star Trek eventually became reality. Although that's usually technology, not physics.

broknsymetry

Heat84 What about a phaser like in Star Trek

Laser ablation is another seriously considered method to avert a possible impact.

https://phys.org/news/2016-03-laser-weapon-earth-killer-asteroids.html

HELLFIRE

Heat84 What about a phaser like in Star Trek(AKA a particle weapon)? Is it possible to vaporize(Or whatever a phaser on Star Trek does) something?

I don't know all the science behind it, but it'll first depend what material it's made of. Energetic brute force works for some stuff, not so well for others...

Regards

Blackbird

It's all about energy. A typical dangerous asteroid has a LOT of kinetic energy due to its mass and existing velocity. To meaningfully affect a major asteroid's current path requires the proper input of a significant amount of energy. That requires a little energy applied over a long time, a lot of energy applied quickly, or a combination of the two. Regardless, the applied energy must be applied properly so as to deflect the path in a way that provides permanent relief... and "properly" implies the need for a very good understanding of the internal properties of the specific asteroid's material in order to correctly calculate the specific effects of the applied energy. The path of a "soft" asteroid will not be deflected in the same way as that of a "hard" asteroid in response to a given kind and amount of external energy application. As this point in time, the entire concept of asteroid deflection is still in its infancy...