As the Asteroid 2024 YR4 is out of view until 2028, news of its trajectory to hit Earth in 2032 have been thin on the ground but at last estimate, there was a 43/1 chance that it would hit somewhere in the Earths Southern Hemisphere but NASA have crunched some more numbers and had a look and decided that in December 2032 the Moon could be between us and the 100m ball of destruction and take a smack on the lunar surface.
Based on observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and other ground-based telescopes, the team at NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies have updated the chance of impacting the Moon on Dec. 22, 2032 from 1.7% to 3.8%.
Obviously, as they point out on their website, that means that there is a 96.2% chance that the asteroid will miss the Moon and even if it did hit our celestial neighbour, the impact would have no effect on the Moon’s orbit which does the job of regulating our seasons and tides.
Seven years is a long time in killer Asteroid detection though and the 43/1 odds are expected to fluctuate and men in white coats at the European Space Agency are saying we shouldn't start to worry just yet and as more data comes in it could very well show the odds of hitting us or the Moon is zero but if given the choice and it is out of us or the Moon, I would prefer the Moon takes it full up the Aristotle Crater.
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but wait, they are scientists. don't they know everything? aren't their reports beyond disputation?
ReplyDeleteReread the last paragraph again.
ReplyDeletelike i wrote above, if your awesome scientists say there is nothing to worry about, why worry? they will let you know when to worry...
ReplyDeletethough they did get "global warming destroys the world by 2014" wrong... and before that "global ice age by 1990"... and the medical scientists over estimated covid by a factor of 10 or 20... and they were wrong about running out of petroleum by 2000... and they can't decide about eggs, dairy, and red wine... damn it. if you can't trust scientists who can you trust? jou... rn... alists... (apologies for interruption, i had to clean the vomit off my screen).
Trust Insurance salesmen?
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