The risk of the 2024 YR4 asteroid hitting Earth has almost doubled since January from 1.2% to 2.3%. It’s estimated to happen at 2.02pm on 22 December 2032. Honestly, the way things are going right now, I increasingly don’t care. ☄️
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I'm thinking we take one of those fancy, powerful Space X rockets and sacrifice it on a mission to push the asteroid faster. God alone knows if we'll even be here in 2032.
100m isn’t nothing, it would impact with the energy larger than an atomic bomb. It’s not going to end humanity, but it could still be a mass casualty event.
That's actually a little bit frightening.
Because as the asteroid gets closer, their calculations get more accurate.
And so far the hit percentage keeps slowly climbing.
Note to self: Find web site calculating height of tsunami from asteroid hitting ocean.
I sleep only 25 feet above sea level.
It only took about 70 million years for basically what looked like a rat to evolve into a human being and since we have at least another billion years before the Sun goes berserk we could actually do it all over again even if we blow ourselves up.
I’m confident that we have the technology to prevent it. In 2001, NASA’s NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft landed on the surface of Eros. In 2020, OSIRIS-REx collected a sample from an asteroid Bennu. They just need to alter its trajectory. It’s more of a reflection of how I’m feeling at the moment.
This is fairly normal when we identify a new orbital body. As time passes, we gather more data and refine the error bars, ruling out some trajectories and making the remaining ones more likely. The odds will continue to increase, then drop to 0 (or rise to 100).
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Because as the asteroid gets closer, their calculations get more accurate.
And so far the hit percentage keeps slowly climbing.
Note to self: Find web site calculating height of tsunami from asteroid hitting ocean.
I sleep only 25 feet above sea level.
One small tiny bit of good news.
And on Valentine's Day.
Now I can sleep, not easily, but more easily.
Party on Garth and Republicans...
It's a genuine marvel that we have the capability now to detect and prevent these collisions, that's worth celebrating!