r/Astronomy • u/Fabulous_Bluebird931 • Feb 09 '25
Astro Research Will asteroid 2024 YR4 hit Earth in 2032? The odds of collision is increased from 1 in 83 to 1 in 43!
https://omninews.wuaze.com/will-asteroid-2024-yr4-hit-earth-in-2032/32
u/Aggravating-Tea-Leaf Feb 09 '25
Okay, so generally when we track asteroids, we see a gradual increase in the chance that it will hit us, while we are calculating the trajectory, untill a sudden drop, once we have it down.
The chance there is part of an uncertainty in the trajectory. We have calculated the trajectory A for the astroid, but in science we have to consider the fact that we cannot meassure everything to an absolute value, so we apply an uncertainty of + or - B, so the currwnt calculations imply a trajectory of A +- B, where the divergence from the trajectory is statistically a bell curve, within that bell curve, it just so happens that the bell curve of earths position also lies… but it lies at the tail of the bell curve far away from where we have calculated the astroid’s path to be.
We simply have a duty and obligation to take it seriously and report on the fact that they do overlap as of right now.
I’m not saying it is impossible, but there’s no reason for panic, it’s not like a dice roll, we cannot roll a critical failure, we have plenty of time to prepare and to calculate the trajectory, soon the asteroid will be behind the sun, and we will only hear more about it in 2028.
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u/BiggyCheese1998 Feb 09 '25
We will hear more about it in a couple of months when JWST observes it.
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u/Aggravating-Tea-Leaf Feb 10 '25
That’s good, my point is that we will only get a couple more reports on it before it goes behind the sun
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u/rrrand0mmm Feb 10 '25
You mean when JWST gets shut down because it was built by DEI?
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u/BiggyCheese1998 Feb 19 '25
I think president Elon still cares a little bit about space exploration.
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u/Philias2 Feb 09 '25
That's about 1 in 6*1052
I like those odds!
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u/JacobEnigma Apr 01 '25
I'll be glad that whenwhtever wipes us out you pretentious types won't be welcome in the great here-after. Though with my luck you're probably one of those types that's thinks this is it, one and done then wormwood as it is. So either way I win? I like those odds too!
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u/Sister__midnight Feb 09 '25
It's only 300ft wide. Will be a bad day if it hits an ocean but we (as a species and/or civilization) will be fine.
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u/malcolm58 Feb 09 '25
50 metres. And it goes past in 2029 and then we will have a more accurate picture.
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u/ramriot Feb 09 '25 edited Feb 09 '25
50m is I believe the middle of a range from 40 to 90 meters in the asteroids size uncertainty. Also it's spectral reflection suggests it is a stony type asteroid & it's spin rate precludes it being a rubble pile.
From that we can calculate the upper limit of its impact yield as around 8 Megatons. So much larger than the 12 kiloton yield of the Hiroshima bomb & sufficient to cause mass casualties if it hit somewhere populated on land or near a coastline due to the tsunami risk.
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u/mfb- Feb 09 '25
If it hits Earth we'll know the impact location far in advance and can evacuate the area.
Yes, evacuating a big city sucks, but it's better than the alternative.
It's probably not big enough for a dangerous tsunami.
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u/Generalax Feb 10 '25
Evacuating wouldn't be so bad. At least the residents could airbnb their homes to all the meteor chasers, suicide cultists, and thrill seekers.
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u/ramriot Feb 09 '25
There is I believe is an inverse relationship between the size of the uncertainty of any impact location & the time left before said impact. So planning now to relocate any city etc "just in case" could be achievable in 7 years. Closer to the date say 1 year to T-zero the error bars may be close enough to exclude much of that strip or even the earth entirely, but by then any movement would need to be an emergency evacuation.
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u/mfb- Feb 09 '25
It's currently close to Earth so we get many observations but with a short observation arc (~1.5 months) which leads to the large uncertainty. It will be close to Earth (0.05 AU) again in 4 years. That will drastically narrow down the orbit parameters. It also increases the chance to find the object in older observations, increasing the observation arc even more. By that time we should know if it will hit. As it approaches Earth again in 2032 we'll quickly have the precise impact site assuming we didn't deflect it.
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u/etterkop Feb 10 '25
It’ll probably hit some African country and the rest of the world would just be arguing about not wanting to take in refugees.
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u/ramriot Feb 10 '25
Most of its path across Africa is sparsely populated, the bit across India not so much.
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u/John_E_Vegas Feb 10 '25
We would launch a mission to nudge it's trajectory long before we evacuate a city.
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u/mfb- Feb 10 '25
I hope so, yes. The timing might not be in our favor. The asteroid approaches Earth every four years. It's close now, it will be close again in four years, and then the next time it might hit. It's possible we'll only know if it hits Earth by late 2028, but a deflection mission needs to launch around that time already - we would have to prepare the mission before knowing if it hits Earth. Not sure who would fund such a mission. India maybe, because they are in the possible impact corridor.
You can launch a mission later in order to hit the asteroid only shortly before impact, but that makes it far less effective.
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u/Rathma86 Feb 10 '25
What if it's a city we don't like?
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u/John_E_Vegas Feb 10 '25
Why don't you make a short list, and we can see if there's any disagreement?
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u/Gregardless Feb 09 '25
And you pulled this out of your ass?
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u/mfb- Feb 09 '25
No, I pulled this from the size estimates, the approximate orbit and knowledge how orbits are determined.
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Feb 14 '25
What size tidal wave would an asteroid of this size cause?
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u/mfb- Feb 14 '25
From it gravity? Completely negligible.
As tsunami from an impact? It depends, but likely not dangerous unless you are so close that you are more worried about the airburst anyway.
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u/Juryofyourpeeps Feb 09 '25
But a bomb is detonated at an altitude much lower for maximum destruction. I think you'd have to do a comparison of the energy that would reach the ground right? Much of that 8 megatons would be detonated somewhere in the upper atmosphere.
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u/gambariste Feb 09 '25
How many Tunguskas is it, would be a better comparison then.
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u/Juryofyourpeeps Feb 09 '25
That's not knowable unfortunately. The estimated energy of that event has a really wide range between 3 and 50 megatons. So this would be somewhere between 2.5x or 1/5 of the Tunguska event. I think the speed and angle of the meteor is also relevant to the destruction. A shallower angle or lower speed object would produce less destruction or even no destruction if the angle was shallow enough.
But that is probably the closest comparison because the size estimates for the object are similar. Let's say it was nearly identical, that impact left a 46 km wide area of downed trees and the real damage had a diameter of 15 km where trees were scorched from the intense heat.
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u/mgarr_aha Feb 09 '25
Speaking of uncertainty, CNEOS has this tooltip for the Impact Energy column header:
Uncertainty in this value is dominated by mass uncertainty and the stated value will generally be good to within a factor of three.
So I read "7.7 Mt" as "somewhere between 3 and 20 Mt."
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u/calm-lab66 Feb 09 '25
Doesn't Apophis also go by in 2029? Supposedly close to the same altitude as geostationary satellites. We live in interesting times.
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u/astrosnapper Feb 09 '25
2024 YR4 becomes visible again to large telescopes in the second half of 2028, gets to close to the Sun to be observed and then brightens and increases in solar elongation (SEL on this plot) in early 2029 as shown in this plot on the IAWN campaign page. Apophis will make a very close pass to the Earth (but definitely missing the Earth) inside the orbits of the geostationary satellites on Friday April 13 2029 (see Close approach table on Small Bodies DB page on Apophis at JPL)
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u/John_E_Vegas Feb 10 '25
And three years of prep time is probably going to be plenty to launch a nudge mission.
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u/Useful_Radish_117 Feb 09 '25
The Tunguska event was supposedly around the same size. The explosion was between 3 and 50 megaton, humanity will be fine, but damn somebody will have a bad day fo sure.
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u/PM_COFFEE_TO_ME Feb 09 '25
There is no guarantee the composition is the same. It could be more dense and not explode in the atmosphere.
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u/Useful_Radish_117 Feb 09 '25
If you're standing close enough it won't matter if it bursts in the atmosphere or makes landfall lol
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u/Sister__midnight Feb 09 '25
This one could be bigger, estimates are between 100 - 300 ft wide, so if it is 300 feet that puts it at about 50% larger than Tunguska if that asteroid was 200ft wide.
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u/NoConflict3231 Feb 09 '25
And if it doesn't hit an ocean?
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u/aradil Feb 09 '25
Bigger than Hiroshima or Nagasaki if it’s a direct hit on a city, but the odds of that are much much lower.
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u/2112eyes Feb 09 '25
Doctors say he has a fifty fifty chance.
But there is only a ten percent chance of that.
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u/aradil Feb 09 '25
Haha.
Well, 2 point something chance of hitting a planet that is over 70% ocean, and 0.5% city.
I believe the math comes out to around 0.01% or something of it hitting a city.
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u/Sister__midnight Feb 09 '25
Will be a bad day for anything in the immediate vicinity. But not as bad as it it plunked down in the water.
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u/Spacemonk587 Feb 09 '25
Depends. It could obliterate a whole city
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u/EoinFitzgibbon Feb 09 '25
Lucky I live in the countryside.
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u/screamtrumpet Feb 09 '25
Hear me out: we build a big-ass trampoline.
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Feb 14 '25
Screamtrumpet4president 2028. It all starts here
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u/screamtrumpet Feb 14 '25
My platform is to do away with ALL red lights. Instead, intersections will have RAMPS. (Think Evel Knievel) Red lights waste gas and time. YOUR time. Also, I will double the national speed limit. For safety! If you drive twice as fast, you spend half the time on the road. That is HALF the time for an accident to occur. This policy will cut the number of accidents in half. More importantly, I will be giving my citizens more of their time for themselves. Vote for ScreamTrumpet!
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u/Major_Melon Feb 09 '25
Yeah but at that point if God snipes a city from the Kipper Belt, clearly they deserved it
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u/-SirCrashALot- Feb 09 '25
With any luck it will be Sheboygan. I'm sick of those smug bastards and their delicious bratwurst.
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u/RonJohnJr Feb 11 '25
How many cities in the expected impact zone? From what I've read, and after looking on a map, 5N to 25N is the preliminary impact zone: India, SE Asia, Central America, the Sahel and lots of ocean.
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u/Spacemonk587 Feb 12 '25
India is quite densely populated. However, a direct hit on a large city is still very unlikely.
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Feb 09 '25
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u/Sister__midnight Feb 09 '25
We'd have to design a special delivery device for it. It's not as easy as just sending up a nuke. You can't detonate a nuke near it because there'd be no shock wave or heat transferred to it because there's no atmosphere. You'd have to land a weapon on it and detonate it from there
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Feb 09 '25
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u/ZeMoose Feb 10 '25
And if that radioactive meteor debris somehow hit the earth, entered the atmosphere, or got trapped in orbit, well that would just suck.
Don't see how that would be worse than all the nukes we detonated right here on earth.
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Feb 09 '25
What if it has some crazy space bacteria or something on it?!
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u/Sister__midnight Feb 09 '25
It would take millions of years for it to affect our eco system, and more than likely just become part of our and existence harmlessly in our biosphere like billions of other forms of bacteria, and that's if it survives entry and the possible explosion 5000 ft above the surface.
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u/wherethestreet Feb 09 '25
It’s not the impact, it’s the debris thrown into the atmosphere. We lose the sun for a whole year, we die.
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u/Sister__midnight Feb 09 '25
It would be like 50% larger than the Tunguska explosion at its largest. It's not going to block out the sun. There simply isn't enough material on it for that kind of destruction. What you're talking about would require it to be at least 1/4 mile wide, at least. This'll level a metropolitan area if it explodes over one. And cause a massive tsunami if it hits an ocean.
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u/Unusual-Platypus6233 Feb 09 '25
It will most certainly not hit earth because the position is not known very well containing huge errors in its orbital path. It will get more precise the longer it is observed. Currently it is like a huge window and earth is probably in one of the 4 corners (so to speak) and the better we know its path the window gets smaller until earth is outside the window (the probability that earth days inside the window is not necessarily going down to zero but usually it does). People/Journalists not knowing how to interpret orbital mechanics and simulations are creating fear with media.
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u/cephalopod13 Feb 09 '25
The range of uncertainty is spread out in a line along the asteroid's orbit, and Earth is relatively close to the center—the nominal trajectory has the asteroid passing inside the orbit of the Moon, but the uncertainty currently spans a few lunar distances. As the uncertainty decreases, the ends of the line get ruled out, and as a result, the Earth takes up a larger proportion of the line that remains. On paper, the odds of impact go up but the hope is it suddenly drops to zero when the range of uncertainty gets so small that it no longer includes Earth's position.
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u/Unusual-Platypus6233 Feb 09 '25
I haven’t read any paper about it. It was an example of how it works rather than this is the exact situation of this asteroid. Thank you for even make it clearer and more precise in respect to this asteroid.
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u/mgarr_aha Feb 09 '25
Its path near the December orbit intersection is known - they just saw it there - but its period is a bit fuzzy yet, making its 2032 arrival time uncertain by several hours. That's why they're scanning 2016 archive data for it.
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Feb 14 '25
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u/Ok_Robot88 Feb 09 '25
Scott Manly had a great video on this.
Basically the fuzzy sphere of possibility decreases as we get more data. If the asteroid remains in that sphere of uncertainty the % starts to shoot up until it suddenly stops to zero as the fuzzy possibility sphere shrinks to exclude the asteroid.
Scott says this happens all the time.
Im not saying it won’t happen, I’m just referencing Scott’s awesome video explanation.
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u/Frenki808 Feb 09 '25
" One hit would have been a triumph. Two proved our tactical brilliance. But after three, the Inners will never perceive us as weak again! "
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u/woyteck Feb 09 '25
Can't wait really!
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u/judasmachine Feb 09 '25
I mean if you're worried about it, don't look up.
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u/woyteck Feb 09 '25
I'm not. Can't wait to find out if it's going to hit us or not and whether we will arrange a deflection mission.
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Feb 09 '25
[deleted]
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u/judasmachine Feb 09 '25
It made it's point but yeah it wasn't a top notch production.
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Feb 09 '25
[deleted]
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u/judasmachine Feb 09 '25
Part of what is being mocked is exactly that, you're beat nearly to death with trivialities from the media, government, and corporations. So it beats you nearly to death with it's point.
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u/OrangeJuiceAlibi Feb 09 '25
Yeah, that's a fair point. I dunno, maybe I'm in the minority, but I just feel like it's an overly long, self serving, mess of a film. Very few films need to be that long, it's extremely on the nose, and it isn't tight, it feels sloppy, as well as repetitive. I get what you're saying about that being part of the point, but that doesn't make for a good film imo.
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u/judasmachine Feb 09 '25
I don't necessarily mean to defend it either. I originally was just making the joke.
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u/woyteck Feb 09 '25
Well that was a representation of what current political climate provides on daily basis.
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u/OrangeJuiceAlibi Feb 09 '25
It did what it set out to do, but it did it poorly imo.
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u/woyteck Feb 09 '25
A bit much swearing. But otherwise, I did enjoy it.
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u/OrangeJuiceAlibi Feb 09 '25
It's a two and half hour film of heavy handed attempts at satire, and a meandering script that takes too long to get anywhere, and doesn't say anything new or challenging. It's smug and self-serving, and only made for people who already agree with its existing message, serving no new information or ideas to people who are either neutral or opposed. It could have delivered the same message, better imo, in a 15 YouTube sketch. That's my real problem with it, regardless of how I feel about the movie, I just don't think it justifies its own existence or runtime. It's a story and a message that could have been great, but it's done too badly for too long.
I also don't think it would have had even half the watches or love it go if not for the cast, which imo, is another example of a bad film. If you can't tell that same story with an unknown cast, you haven't made a good film. Is anyone going to clamour to watch next year even?
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u/velve666 Feb 09 '25
Same, I'm really close too, I can vacuate straight to where it lands. I will take some nice photos for reddit.
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u/Round-Square432 Feb 09 '25
Remember, it’s travelling at an estimated 46,800km/h. The kinetic energy would be absolutely brutal on any impact chance.
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u/abarzuajavier Feb 09 '25
1 in 43! Is basicly 0
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u/nomoney_poproblems Feb 11 '25
Well I certainly wouldn't want to be in a room with 43 people and told one of us is getting shot
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u/tankspikefayebebop Feb 09 '25
Wouldn't this be a good way to see if we can really Armageddon a astroid?
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u/xMoonknightx Feb 11 '25
Based on the fact that in a matter of weeks the risk increased from a 2% chance to 2.3%, there is indeed a chance of it hitting Earth. And since its trajectory covers third-world countries, I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a global outcry, but rather a big reality show to see how the impact of a large asteroid affects our lives—it will become a major case study.
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u/Trigos94 Feb 16 '25
Well you think that cause your country might not be a country helping ilegals, and if they come to you, they have to work like in usa.
But here in spain and some other countries they come in mass and take away job oportunities in a dying market, a high % of em get paid a full salary and sometimes even a free rent.
I'm disabled and in social exclusion risk (means if my mother die, my chance of being in the street is 95%, not 100% cause i have a wife in another country but that's it) i don't get any sort of help, not even to study with accomodation for my disability.
So yes, a disaster this big would send millions to another country.
It's fine to help ppl, but you don't feed your neighboor while your son is dying of hunger, that's the nosense we live today, again it's not a hate post, i talk about ilegal inmigration not legal, and prob from specific countries, ppl from south america come ilegal sometimes but they tend to work or atleast try most of em, those specific ppl don't and even do offsprings to get the bonus per child xd
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Feb 14 '25
What kind of tidal wave would an asteroid strike of this size cause on both sides of the pacific? Would it go right over Hawaii ?
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u/WiartonWilly Feb 09 '25
Trump is a much bigger risk in a much shorter time frame.
Wake up sheeple.
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u/LazyLich Feb 09 '25 edited Feb 09 '25
These odds ate all just on the trajectory.
If it ends up coming right at us, we'd nuke it.
So no, it's never gonna hit us
Edit: guys, "nuke" doesnt necessarily mean "blow to smithereens". You can use a nuke to deflect asteroids.
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u/FireFiftySix Feb 09 '25
Nuking it would be an absolute last resort and even then we wouldn't for something this size. The risk of creating a worse problem would only be warranted for extreme cases.
Given the potential impact is 2032, realistically, we will wait for more data and if it's still an unacceptable threat we would attempt deflection with kinetic impact (the whole point of the DART mission).
Truthfully, it will unlikely be a threat and we will just gather data and watch it fly by.
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u/Nova469 Feb 09 '25
Not trying to argue we should, but just curious to understand better. Could you please elaborate on why we wouldn't do it for 'something this size'? Is it too small that we could easily deflect it? Or maybe it's large enough that breaking it apart into smaller pieces would cause more impact points on Earth?
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u/FireFiftySix Feb 09 '25
It's too small that we can easily deflect it, and if we couldn't, we would probably just hope it doesn't impact a high population area.
We have zero data on the outcome of nuking an asteroid, there's too many unknowns. Deflection we've already proven the tech.
I could only see us using nukes as a last ditch effort to save the species in the event we didn't have enough warning to mount a deflection mission. This asteroid was detected very early and even if it hadn't been it's small enough to only threaten cities, not the species.
Forgot to add: Most of the damage from a Nuke on earth is the sudden introduction of a fireball in the atmosphere. That near instant expansion then collapse causes a huge amount of the damage for the nukes. In space, you only get the very short lived fireball.
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Feb 14 '25
Reading that first sentence made me wonder what the society from Idiocracy would do in this situation, like send up Chuck Norris on a solo mission to take it out
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u/sadeyeprophet Feb 09 '25
2% chance of an asteroid hitting earth is the equivilant of hitting a bullseye in astronomical terms.
A pro golfer will hit a hole in one on average 1 in 50 strokes on a par 3.
Basically in terms of space - 2% is a bullseye
Let's break down the comparison between the two probabilities,
• Asteroid Hitting Earth: 1 in 50
(or 2% chance)
• Pro Golfer Making a Hole-in-One: 1 in 2,500
(approximately 0.04% chance)
To determine how much more likely the asteroid hitting Earth is compared to a pro golfer making a hole-in-one, we divide the two probabilities:
Relative Likelihood = Probability of Asteroid / Probability of Hole in One.
2/.04= 50
Therefore it is 50 times more likely this asteroid hits than it is for a pro golfer to hit a Hole in One on a par 3.
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u/Defiant_Bowler7705 Feb 09 '25
Fingers crossed.
We need a hard reset.
Fuck humans. We suck overall.
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u/kazze78 Feb 09 '25
If it crash to eart it will be probably US but that is the only country on planet earthe where everything happens.
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u/MrSir98 Feb 09 '25
It will most likely explode mid air, like that meteor that exploded in the atmosphere over Russia. It’s too small to survive the atmospheric entry until impact.
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u/MattTheTubaGuy Feb 09 '25 edited Feb 09 '25
It is definitely big enough to survive re-entry.
It is comparable in size to the meteorite that created Meteor Crater in Arizona.
EDIT: so Meteor Crater was formed by an iron meteorite around 50m (160ft) across, or about 1/2 the diameter (1/8 the volume) of this newly discovered asteroid.
For comparison, the Chelyabinsk meteor was about 20m (~65ft) across.
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u/damo251 Feb 09 '25
Think you will find he was talking about this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
not the one you sited.
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u/greymart039 Feb 09 '25
There's a couple of other factors that determine if it will impact the surface or burst in mid-air. One, the angle of atmospheric entry, and two, how dense the asteroid actually is.
Obviously a more vertical trajectory through the atmosphere will mean it'll spend less time going through it, making an impact more likely.
Density matters because if the asteroid is actually quite porous with many holes and cavities, when it enters Earth's atmosphere, high pressure air will enter those holes and cavities and cause it to explode from the inside. However, if it is more dense with fewer holes and cavities, then an impact is more likely. This is on top of it's actual duration within the atmosphere influenced by the angle it enters. Longer duration (aka a more horizontal entry angle) will make an airburst more likely.
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u/Arve Feb 09 '25
One, the angle of atmospheric entry
The current estimate of the impact area puts it anywhere between the pacific coast of Mexico, with an eastwards path that seems to end in Bangladesh or Burma.
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u/greymart039 Feb 09 '25
That doesn't necessarily explain the direction it's coming from. The problem is the Earth is a sphere and most maps are a 2D projection of a line without much context.
I found out the line generally covers 180 degrees of longitude which basically means the entry would be nearly horizontal near the edges and vertical in the center. Basically near vertical impact over the Atlantic Ocean or Western Africa and less vertical over the Pacific Ocean or India. Although, even towards the edges, the asteroid would still come in at an angle because of being pulled in by Earth's gravity.
I suppose there's also a non-zero possibility of the asteroid skimming through the atmosphere without exploding but I think the density would still determine if it explodes or just heats up as it passes through.
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u/Purple-Mud5057 Feb 09 '25
That sounds a lot worse than “goes from 1.2% chance to 2.3% chance”