Here’s a question about asteroid 2024 YR4 that’s being emailed to me a lot: how can such a small asteroid, perhaps just 40m (130 feet) long, unleash a blast wave similar to a nuclear bomb? How can a rock like that devastate a city? Let me explain, with a some basic physics 👇 - ThreadSky

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squigglyvolcano.bsky.social • 30 days ago

Here’s a question about asteroid 2024 YR4 that’s being emailed to me a lot: how can such a small asteroid, perhaps just 40m (130 feet) long, unleash a blast wave similar to a nuclear bomb? How can a rock like that devastate a city?

Let me explain, with a some basic physics 👇

Comments

squigglyvolcano.bsky.social•30 days ago

Dozens of things factor into the potential destructiveness of an asteroid airburst or ground impact, from the atmospheric drag on the asteroid to the angle it hits that atmosphere.

But one variable reigns above all else: mass.

squigglyvolcano.bsky.social•30 days ago

When an object moves, it has kinetic energy. And that can be represented by an equation: ½ mv^2. That is: the speed of the object (v) multiplied by itself, then multiplied by the mass (m), then multiplied by 0.5.

squigglyvolcano.bsky.social•30 days ago

The amount of kinetic energy an asteroid possesses is a good approximation of how much energy the explosion will have.

squigglyvolcano.bsky.social•30 days ago

Seeing as the asteroid's speed gets multiplied by itself in that equation, you would think that it’s the key factor in determining an airburst's ferocity. And speed is important, as these things come in at tens of thousands of miles per hour.

If they're fast, they're furious.

squigglyvolcano.bsky.social•30 days ago

But the mass of the asteroid is the key to the potential for violence here.

squigglyvolcano.bsky.social•30 days ago

The mass of something depends on a few different things. But crucially for planetary defenders, mass also depends on the object's radius-the distance from the center of the object to its edge— multiplied by itself, then multiplied by itself again.

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