Tuesday, 8 April 2025

Thank You Moon

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.

2 comments:

Not really a blog said...

but wait, they are scientists. don't they know everything? aren't their reports beyond disputation?

Anonymous said...

Reread the last paragraph again.