posted 02-09-2025 11:02 AM               

NASA Monitors Near-Earth Asteroid 2024 YR4

While an extremely low possibility, observations and analysis of asteroid 2024 YR4 indicate that its impact probability with Earth is a 2.3% chance on Dec. 22, 2032. Ongoing observations from ground-based telescopes involved with the International Asteroid Warning Network will continue while the asteroid is still visible through April, after which it will be too faint to observe until around June 2028.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will also observe the asteroid in March 2025 to better assess the asteroid’s size. Currently the asteroid is estimated to be 130-300 feet across.

As more observations of the asteroid’s orbit are obtained, its impact probability will become better known. It is possible that asteroid 2024 YR4 will be ruled out as an impact hazard, as has happened with many other objects that have previously appeared on NASA’s asteroid risk list, maintained by NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. It is also possible its impact probability will continue to rise. The latest data will continue to be made available via NASA’s automated Sentry page.

Asteroid 2024 YR4 was first reported on Dec. 27, 2024, to the Minor Planet Center– the international clearing house for small-body positional measurements – by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System station in Chile.

B612 Foundation has taken the orbit and uncertainty of asteroid 2024YR4, sampled 10K trajectories from the current uncertainty, and propagated them forward. 2.3% of those hit the Earth on Dec. 22, 2032. Here is where they hit.

posted 02-19-2025 10:11 AM               

And even if it did, the impact tractory is glancing not direct. A 130 foot wide stony meteorite at a glancing trajectory is hardly cause for panic. Even if it did enter the atmosphere (at that angle, there would be considerable atmospheric degradation) and impacted, the area of impact is still likely to be less than 0.0075% on densely inhabited areas.

Pause for a moment, that is a possibility of 0.0075% of 3% that Calcutta or similar would be hit. By a 130 foot wide stony asteroid. It's not Chicxulub. It's not even the Fukushima tsunami.

It's more like a fully fuel laden Boeing 747 hitting the centre of any major city you can name. More likely like a minor version of the Tunguska impact, with an air detonation that has theoretical atom bomb energies but practically zero effect on human survivability on the ground.

Tragic, but not the end of the world.

To put it another way, each and every day ~150,000 people die. Day in, day out. There are 8.2 billion people on the planet, which means that each day you wake up you have a probability of 0.001875% of dying that day.

posted 02-19-2025 11:13 AM            

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Originally posted by Axman:
There is still more than a 96% chance it will not impact Earth... practically zero effect on human survivability on the ground.

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I assume your reference to "human survivability" is a reference to the survival of the human race, but for someone living beneath the potential impact track, human survivability will have a more parochial meaning.

I can't help wondering how high the impact probability will have to be to persuade NASA and the other space agencies to attempt an intervention. What if they intervene but make matters worse? What if they don't intervene and a town none of us has ever heard of gets obliterated with the loss of 50,000 people?

I assume they won't need to make any decisions until 2024 YR4 comes back in four years and more accurate predictions can be made.

posted 02-19-2025 11:22 AM               

And to answer your exact point, every time you step outside of your front door and travel by whatever means you choose, you have a real statistical probability of dying. You are going to die. It's unavoidable. The manner of your death cannot be accounted for. The asteroid doesn't increase your (or anybody else's) chance of death. Statistically, and in a proper sense, realistically, it is completely irrelevant.

quote:

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Originally posted by SpaceAholic:
...an iron meteorite of the same estimated diameter is attributed to the formation of the crater outside Winslow, Arizona, by the way.

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posted 02-19-2025 02:59 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by SpaceAholic:
Impact probability has ticked up sightly to 3.1%...

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