Latest news with #Near-EarthObjectCoordinationCentre
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Asteroid 2024 YR4 now poses no significant threat to Earth
The latest telescopic observations have reduced the danger posed by 2024 YR4 to near-zero. A small space rock named 2024 YR4 has been in the news a lot lately. Just after it was discovered, it soared to the top of NASA's Sentry table, which lists all known asteroids with any chance of hitting Earth sometime in the future, no matter how small that chance is. Not only did 2024 YR4 have the highest chance of impact on December 22, 2032, starting off at just 1.3 per cent, but the odds of hitting Earth kept rising as more observations came in. As of February 18, they were over 3 per cent, or a 1 in 32 chance of impact. According to the ESA's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre (NEOCC), that surpassed asteroid Apophis' record for highest impact probability, at 2.7 per cent or 1 in 37 odds, from back in 2004. READ MORE: New observations of 2024 YR4 over the past week, taken by various telescopes around the world, have significantly reduced the potential risk of this asteroid, as well. The Sentry Risk table, from Jan. 29 (top) and Feb. 26 (bottom), showing that 2024 YR4 has gone from the top of the list (greatest risk on both Palermo and Torino scales) to 11th place, with significantly lower impact odds on Palermo scale, and down to 0 (safe) on the Torino scale. (NASA CNEOS) Even a day after 2024 YR4 reached its highest impact probability, the odds of it hitting dropped down to only 1.5 per cent. The day after that, they plummetted to 0.27 per cent, and the asteroid's Torino Scale threat fell from a 3 (merits attention by astronomers) to a 1 (a routine discovery that will pass near, but poses no unusual level of danger). Now, as of February 26, the potential danger from 2024 YR4 is all but gone. It's current risk stands at a 0.0011 per cent chance of Earth impact on December 22, 2032. That's only 1 in 91,000 odds, and there is now a 99.9989 per cent chance the asteroid will miss Earth entirely. 2024 YR4's Earth Impact Risk Summary as of Feb. 26, 2025, shows the very low odds of it actually being a danger to us now. (NASA CNEOS) Right from the start, the odds of 2024 YR4 actually being a danger to us were fairly low. Additionally, because it has happened this way before, it was always very likely that the odds of impact from this space rock were going to diminish down to near-zero, or even be completely ruled out. Watch below: How asteroids go from threat to no sweat Due to the possible damage that such an asteroid could cause, though, astronomers are understandably concerned about any such rock that comes in high on their risk lists. The 20-metre-wide asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, on February 15, 2013, shattered windows, damaged some buildings, and injured about 1,500 people. At roughly three times that size, an impact from 2024 YR4 would cause an airblast explosion powerful enough to level buildings across a wide area, resulting in far greater damage and potential loss of life. Fortunately, Earth has been travelling around the solar system for over 4.6 billion years — long enough for it to have already scooped up the vast majority of large asteroids that could pose a real threat. Thus, as we get better at finding and cataloguing them, we discover most are not dangerous. At the same time, though, astronomers still keep an eye out for those that might be. While the potential threat to Earth from 2024 YR4 is all but gone, as the uncertainties in its orbit have been narrowed down, it has actually become more likely that this asteroid will strike the Moon, instead. The new uncertainy region for 2024 YR4's close enounter with the Earth-Moon system on December 22, 2032, computed as of February 24, 2025. While the asteroid's potential closest passes (orange dots) have completely cleared Earth, they are now nearly centred on the orbit of the Moon, with the most likely close pass (yellow dot) indicating a potential impact with the Moon. (ESA NEOCC) "There still remains a very small chance for asteroid 2024 YR4 to impact the Moon on Dec. 22, 2032. That probability is currently 1.7%," Molly Wasser, the Outreach Coordinator for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, posted on the agency's Planetary Defense blog. If such an impact were to take place, it would not cause any significant damage to the Moon. With the Moon in its Waning Gibbous phase on Dec. 22, 2032, we may not even see the flash of the strike from Earth, but any impact and resulting crater could be detected by a lunar orbiting spacecraft, such as NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Click here to view the video
Boston Globe
09-02-2025
- Science
- Boston Globe
Why the odds of an asteroid striking Earth in 2032 keep going up (and down)
To many, this feels unsettling. But what appears scary is, in fact, typical when it comes to newly discovered near-Earth asteroids. 'It is true that the probability of impact has doubled recently, but that doesn't mean that it will keep doing so,' said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California who is involved in overseeing the programs that make these orbital calculations. 'What matters is that the probability of impact is very small, and that it is likely to drop to zero as we keep observing 2024 YR4.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Two key organizations are involved in calculating these impact odds. They are the NASA center Farnocchia works at, and the Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre in Italy, which is part of the European Space Agency. These groups are the cartographers of near-Earth space, looking out for parts of the cosmic map where they can mark 'here be dragons' — in this case, potentially hazardous asteroids or comets. Advertisement When an asteroid (or a comet) is discovered, both centers use their automated orbital dynamics software (Scout and Sentry for NASA, and Meerkat and Aegis for the European center) to consider the available observations of the object. When the asteroid's many possible future orbits are plotted out, some may result in an Earth impact. But many of these orbits will shift away from Earth, so the probability of an impact will be low. It's as if the asteroid has a wide spotlight that's beaming out ahead of it. Earth is initially caught in the beam, but so is a lot of the space around it. Advertisement Then, more observations come in. The spotlight of those possible orbits shrinks. The outliers are gone. But Earth is still in the spotlight and now takes up proportionally more space in it. 'Earth now covers a larger fraction of the uncertainty, and so the probability of impact has gone up,' Farnocchia said. This can happen for some time as observations continue. 'That's why the impact probability rises,' said Juan Luis Cano, an aerospace engineer with the Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre. 'Little by little, it grows.' And it explains what's been happening with 2024 YR4's odds. Sometimes, as has been the case for 2024 YR4, the odds can fluctuate slightly. This is because the quality of some observations can be better or worse than others, which can move the cluster of anticipated orbits around a bit. 'All this is expected,' Farnocchia said. Normally, additional observations significantly reduce the orbital uncertainty, and Earth falls out of that trajectory — dropping the impact odds to zero. Humanity will have to see whether the same outcome awaits 2024 YR4. Telescopes can observe 2024 YR4 until April, after which time it will be too distant and faint to see until another Earth flyby in 2028. By April, it's likely that astronomers will have enough observations of the asteroid, spread across several months, to know its orbit precisely, and they will ultimately determine that no impact will occur in 2032. 'People should not be worried at this point,' Cano said. Nevertheless, 2024 YR4 is being taken seriously by NASA and ESA. 'Even though the probability of impact is small, it is larger than we usually find for other asteroids,' Farnocchia said. Advertisement If this asteroid were to hit Earth, it would unleash a destructive force similar to a nuclear bomb. And the current uncertainty over its future orbit extends to its possible impact locations, which include a mix of uninhabited, sparsely populated and densely populated areas: the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, parts of Africa, the Arabian Sea and South Asia. 2024 YR4 is unlikely to be on a collision course. But 'we don't get to choose when the next significant asteroid impact will be,' Farnocchia said. 'We just don't want to take any chances, and so we will keep tracking 2024 YR4.' And if it does become a problem, it may be time for Earth to rally anti-asteroid defenses. This article originally appeared in
