Latest news with #Weigert
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
What are the chances of Earth being hit by a big asteroid?
A week ago, the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory released its first images. It also included a video of all the asteroids it discovered. In just 10 hours, the Simonyi Survey Telescope with the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) camera captured more than 2,000 previously undetected asteroids. It's a reminder that, while there's a lot of space in space, our solar system still has a lot going on. Asteroids are rocks and debris left over from the formation of our solar system. There are two main areas where much of it is located. The first being the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The second is the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune. But there are still many more floating around out there. WATCH | See a swarm of newly discovered asteroids Scientists estimate that roughly 44 tonnes of meteoric debris fall toward Earth every day. That's right: every day. The good news is that most of it burns up in our atmosphere. But what are the chances that a much larger object is on a collision course with Earth? "Earth has been hit in the past by large asteroids, and presumably, if we waited long enough, something would happen. But the risk is very, very small," said Paul Weigert, a professor at Western University's department of physics and astronomy in London, Ont. "So none of the asteroids that we know about today have a significant chance of striking Earth in the next 100 years or so. So that's a pretty healthy time horizon." However, there's no guarantee that something that has thus far been undetected isn't on its way. "As we go beyond that, there's always the chance that we can discover new asteroids, of course, and they become not unpredictable, but harder to predict in great detail, at longer distances," Weigert added. The importance of being earnest There are numerous groups scanning the sky looking for asteroids, and Weigert said that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory ramps up the search like never before. "The Vera Rubin telescope is really going to revolutionize the way this kind of work is done. I think even people who knew what to expect, that knew this was coming down the pipeline, were impressed by the way LSST-Rubin was able really dive right in and start finding these things," he said. "So that's going to be a very impressive discovery machine going forward." NASA has found more than 1.4 billion asteroids, and believes it has identified more than 95 per cent of asteroids one kilometre or larger in our solar system. It's estimated that the Rubin observatory will discover 89,000 near-Earth objects and 3.7 million main-belt asteroids. Now, getting hit by an asteroid is a really a matter of odds. Smaller objects, such as asteroids about 10 metres in diameter impact Earth once a decade. While not planetary ending, they can break windows. The Chelyabinsk meteorite that exploded over Russia in 2013 was twice this size, and did indeed break windows, which injured roughly 1,500 people. WATCH | News report on 2013 meteorite that struck Russia The bigger the rock, the less often they impact Earth. For example, a 140-metre asteroid impacts Earth roughly once every 1,000 years and one that is about one kilometre in size impacts Earth roughly every 700,000 years. An asteroid that size would be devastating. The one that is believed to have killed off the dinosaurs was about 10 to 15 kilometres in size. Those impacts are estimated to happen about once every 100 million years. Jim Freemantle is project manager for the OSIRIS-REx laser altimeter project at York University in Toronto. OSIRIS-REx was the sample-return mission to the asteroid Bennu. He has a tiny piece of the asteroid in his lab. He believes it's important to track and better understand asteroids overall. "I don't lie awake wondering about, you know, is a dinosaur-killer asteroid gonna come and destroy us all. We've got other things to worry about," he said. "It is something that I think that it's prudent to begin to think about, measuring where or looking for where asteroids are, because sometimes they sneak up on us." He also said that he's excited to have these observation systems in place, and also by plans to try to deflect any asteroid that might be on a collision course with Earth. In particular, he noted NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission to a two-asteroid system. The goal was to see if we could move an asteroid by slamming something into one. The spacecraft crashed into one of the asteroids to see if doing so could change its orbit. It was deemed a success. And now the European Space Agency has a spacecraft on its way back to the system for more follow-up observations. Asteroid to impact the moon? Weigert and his team recently released a pre-print study about 2024 YR4, a newly discovered asteroid 60 metres in size that, at one point this year, raised some concerns about its chance that it would impact Earth in 2032. But we've now been given the green light to stop worrying about that, as astronomers have refined the asteroid's orbit somewhat, and it turns out that it won't impact Earth. However, there's still a four per cent chance it will hit the moon. In the new study from Weigert and his colleagues calculated what that might look like. WATCH | How worried should we be about an asteroid hurtling toward Earth? | Hanomansing Tonight He said that typically, when an asteroid hits the moon or any planet without an atmosphere, it makes a crater about 10 times its own size. As for 2024 YR4, if it hits the moon, rocks and debris will blast out with most falling back down the the lunar surface. But some of those tiny rocks could make their way to Earth, the authors said. "If it hits in the right spot, quite a bit of material could be delivered to Earth in the form of basically small lunar rocks, maybe centimetre-size or millimetre-size, perfect for making shooting stars, falling stars, and that would produce quite a wonderful meteor shower on Earth over several days, depending again and exactly where it strikes the moon," Weigert said. But, that would also pose a bit of a threat to satellites. But Weigert anticipates that as the orbit is further refined — which won't happen until 2028 the earliest, as its currently behind the sun — the chances of this happening will drop to zero. Weigert also explained why it takes time to get a better estimate at the path of an asteroid. "You can see it move across the sky very, very well, but it's actually very, very difficult to tell how far away it is," he said. "It's only after watching it over a long period of time and knowing about the laws of physics and how gravity affects the orbit, that you can really refine it and say, 'Okay, if it's following the laws of physics, which it should be doing, that it's traveling along this path.'" When asked if he loses any sleep over the possibility of an asteroid hitting Earth, Weigert said quite simply, "No." "We've seen most of the really dangerous asteroids, and we're continuing to work diligently to find as many more of the slightly less but still somewhat dangerous asteroids, and especially with something like the Rubin observatory coming online here, now that that task is going to sort of move to completion even faster than it has been."
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Artist impression of a large asteroid impacting on Earth such as the Chicxulub event that caused the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, 66 million years ago. Shown in the background are planet Mars and asteroid bodies.
A week ago, the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory released its first images. It also included a video of all the asteroids it discovered. In just 10 hours, the Simonyi Survey Telescope with the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) camera captured more than 2,000 previously undetected asteroids. It's a reminder that, while there's a lot of space in space, our solar system still has a lot going on. Asteroids are rocks and debris left over from the formation of our solar system. There are two main areas where much of it is located. The first being the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The second is the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune. But there are still many more floating around out there. WATCH | See a swarm of newly discovered asteroids Scientists estimate that roughly 44 tonnes of meteoric debris fall toward Earth every day. That's right: every day. The good news is that most of it burns up in our atmosphere. But what are the chances that a much larger object is on a collision course with Earth? "Earth has been hit in the past by large asteroids, and presumably, if we waited long enough, something would happen. But the risk is very, very small," said Paul Weigert, a professor at Western University's department of physics and astronomy in London, Ont. "So none of the asteroids that we know about today have a significant chance of striking Earth in the next 100 years or so. So that's a pretty healthy time horizon." However, there's no guarantee that something that has thus far been undetected isn't on its way. "As we go beyond that, there's always the chance that we can discover new asteroids, of course, and they become not unpredictable, but harder to predict in great detail, at longer distances," Weigert added. The importance of being earnest There are numerous groups scanning the sky looking for asteroids, and Weigert said that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory ramps up the search like never before. "The Vera Rubin telescope is really going to revolutionize the way this kind of work is done. I think even people who knew what to expect, that knew this was coming down the pipeline, were impressed by the way LSST-Rubin was able really dive right in and start finding these things," he said. "So that's going to be a very impressive discovery machine going forward." NASA has found more than 1.4 billion asteroids, and believes it has identified more than 95 per cent of asteroids one kilometre or larger in our solar system. It's estimated that the Rubin observatory will discover 89,000 near-Earth objects and 3.7 million main-belt asteroids. Now, getting hit by an asteroid is a really a matter of odds. Smaller objects, such as asteroids about 10 metres in diameter impact Earth once a decade. While not planetary ending, they can break windows. The Chelyabinsk meteorite that exploded over Russia in 2013 was twice this size, and did indeed break windows, which injured roughly 1,500 people. WATCH | News report on 2013 meteorite that struck Russia The bigger the rock, the less often they impact Earth. For example, a 140-metre asteroid impacts Earth roughly once every 1,000 years and one that is about one kilometre in size impacts Earth roughly every 700,000 years. An asteroid that size would be devastating. The one that is believed to have killed off the dinosaurs was about 10 to 15 kilometres in size. Those impacts are estimated to happen about once every 100 million years. Jim Freemantle is project manager for the OSIRIS-REx laser altimeter project at York University in Toronto. OSIRIS-REx was the sample-return mission to the asteroid Bennu. He has a tiny piece of the asteroid in his lab. He believes it's important to track and better understand asteroids overall. "I don't lie awake wondering about, you know, is a dinosaur-killer asteroid gonna come and destroy us all. We've got other things to worry about," he said. "It is something that I think that it's prudent to begin to think about, measuring where or looking for where asteroids are, because sometimes they sneak up on us." He also said that he's excited to have these observation systems in place, and also by plans to try to deflect any asteroid that might be on a collision course with Earth. In particular, he noted NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission to a two-asteroid system. The goal was to see if we could move an asteroid by slamming something into one. The spacecraft crashed into one of the asteroids to see if doing so could change its orbit. It was deemed a success. And now the European Space Agency has a spacecraft on its way back to the system for more follow-up observations. Asteroid to impact the moon? Weigert and his team recently released a pre-print study about 2024 YR4, a newly discovered asteroid 60 metres in size that, at one point this year, raised some concerns about its chance that it would impact Earth in 2032. But we've now been given the green light to stop worrying about that, as astronomers have refined the asteroid's orbit somewhat, and it turns out that it won't impact Earth. However, there's still a four per cent chance it will hit the moon. In the new study from Weigert and his colleagues calculated what that might look like. WATCH | How worried should we be about an asteroid hurtling toward Earth? | Hanomansing Tonight He said that typically, when an asteroid hits the moon or any planet without an atmosphere, it makes a crater about 10 times its own size. As for 2024 YR4, if it hits the moon, rocks and debris will blast out with most falling back down the the lunar surface. But some of those tiny rocks could make their way to Earth, the authors said. "If it hits in the right spot, quite a bit of material could be delivered to Earth in the form of basically small lunar rocks, maybe centimetre-size or millimetre-size, perfect for making shooting stars, falling stars, and that would produce quite a wonderful meteor shower on Earth over several days, depending again and exactly where it strikes the moon," Weigert said. But, that would also pose a bit of a threat to satellites. But Weigert anticipates that as the orbit is further refined — which won't happen until 2028 the earliest, as its currently behind the sun — the chances of this happening will drop to zero. Weigert also explained why it takes time to get a better estimate at the path of an asteroid. "You can see it move across the sky very, very well, but it's actually very, very difficult to tell how far away it is," he said. "It's only after watching it over a long period of time and knowing about the laws of physics and how gravity affects the orbit, that you can really refine it and say, 'Okay, if it's following the laws of physics, which it should be doing, that it's traveling along this path.'" When asked if he loses any sleep over the possibility of an asteroid hitting Earth, Weigert said quite simply, "No." "We've seen most of the really dangerous asteroids, and we're continuing to work diligently to find as many more of the slightly less but still somewhat dangerous asteroids, and especially with something like the Rubin observatory coming online here, now that that task is going to sort of move to completion even faster than it has been."
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
'City killer' asteroid 2024 YR4 could shower Earth with 'bullet-like' meteors if it hits the moon in 2032
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. New simulations reveal that the infamous "city killer" asteroid 2024 YR4 could shower Earth with "bullet-like" debris if it hits the moon in seven years' time, potentially triggering an eye-catching meteor shower — and endangering the satellites that orbit our planet. 2024 YR4 is a potentially hazardous asteroid measuring roughly 200 feet (60 meters) across, making it large enough to wipe out a large urban area if it were to hit Earth head-on. It was first discovered in December 2024 but made headlines earlier this year when scientists first predicted that there was a chance it could smash into Earth on Dec. 22, 2032. The odds of a collision peaked at 3.1% in February, which was enough to prompt NASA to study it extensively. However, subsequent analysis revealed there is zero chance of it impacting our planet. But in April, researchers realized that, while Earth is no longer in the firing line, the space rock could still hit the moon. The odds of such a collision have grown slowly but steadily, and most recently jumped to 4.3% earlier this month. Experts will likely know the final likelihood by 2028, when the asteroid will make its next close approach to our planet. In a new study, uploaded June 12 to the preprint server arXiv, researchers ran computer simulations to model what a lunar impact might look like. The team estimated that up to 220 million pounds (100 million kilograms) of material could be ejected from the lunar surface. If 2024 YR4 hits the Earth-facing side of the moon — which is roughly a 50/50 chance — up to 10% of this debris could be pulled in by Earth's gravity over the following days, the scientists wrote. 2024 YR4 would be the largest space rock to hit the moon in "at least 5,000 years," study lead author Paul Wiegert, an expert in solar system dynamics at Western University in Ontario, Canada, who has also extensively studied the "God of Chaos" asteroid Apophis that will zip past Earth in 2029, told French news site AFP. The impact would be "comparable to a large nuclear explosion in terms of the amount of energy released," he added. Related: 'Just the tip of the iceberg': Why risky asteroids like 2024 YR4 will pester Earth for decades to come It is important to note that the new simulations (visible below) were created before the odds of a lunar impact rose from 3.8% to 4.3% on June 16, which slightly raises the chances of this scenario playing out. But it is still far from a certainty. The findings from the new study have also not yet been peer-reviewed. It is unlikely that any of the potential debris fragments will pose a risk to people on the planet's surface. Instead, we may be treated to a "spectacular" meteor shower as wayward fragments of rock burn up in Earth's atmosphere, which could last for several days and be seen by people across the globe, Weigert said. But while we will almost certainly be safe on the ground from any potential lunar meteor shower, our space-based infrastructure could be under threat. The amount of debris that could potentially be pulled close to Earth makes it around 1,000 times more likely that our satellites could be struck by a meteor. And by 2032, the number of spacecraft orbiting our planet is expected to rise significantly. "A centimeter-sized rock traveling at tens of thousands of meters per second is a lot like a bullet," Weigert said. Such an object could easily take out a satellite or cause critical damage to human-inhabited space stations, such as China's Tiangong station. (The International Space Station is scheduled to be decommissioned by 2030.) If the odds of a lunar impact increase further in the coming years, government agencies may make the decision to try and divert the asteroid's course to protect Earth's space assets. The asteroid would be a "good target" for testing our planetary defence capabilities, Weigert said. "I'm sure it will be considered." RELATED STORIES —An 'invisible threat': Swarm of hidden 'city killer' asteroids around Venus could one day collide with Earth, simulations show —No, NASA hasn't warned of an impending asteroid strike in 2038. Here's what really happened. —'Planet killer' asteroids are hiding in the sun's glare. Can we stop them in time? NASA already demonstrated its ability to redirect dangerous asteroids back in 2022, when it diverted the trajectory of the asteroid Dimorphos by slamming the DART probe into it. 2024 YR4 is only around half the size of that particular space rock. However, if we wait too long, it may become "dangerous" to try and alter the space rock's trajectory because a wrong move could put it onto a potentially catastrophic collision course with Earth, Weigert said. Some experts are also worried that the proposed cuts to NASA's budget by the Trump administration could make it harder to track dangerous asteroids, such as 2024 YR4, in the future.
