Asteroid as wide as 886 cans of spam may hit Earth in 2032
- Reference: 1738303634
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/31/asteroid_earth_impact/
- Source link:
On Christmas Day, a NASA-operated robot telescope was taking in the night sky in Chile when it caught sight of an object that activated the space agency's Asteroid Terrestrial Last Alert System. This prompted scientists to investigate, and two days later, they figured whatever it was, it was zooming away from our home world – but on a trajectory could bring it back our way.
If it were to whack into our planet, it would be like an eight-mega-ton TNT bomb going off, about 500 times larger than the nuke dropped on Hiroshima in World War II, we're told. Gaze upon the terrifying dot in the video below, captured by a European telescope in Chile, for it is the asteroid in question. And 2024 YR4 be its name.
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[2]Youtube Video
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"At this point astronomers have measured the object’s orbit, and further observations will refine that orbit to give us a more precise understanding of its potential danger," [5]said Heidi Hammel, science veep at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy.
"We have a rough estimate of its size based on its brightness, and from variations in the brightness, we can infer that it has an elongated shape. Measurements at visible wavelengths suggest it may be a stony asteroid."
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Information on 2024 YR4 is still being collated. We do know for now that the space rock is thought to be 40 to 90 metres (130 to 300 feet) in diameter – as wide as 886 standard four-inch cans of spam laid end to end – and is moving away from Earth at 17.32 km/s (38,700 MPH). It'll stay in sight from our planet until April before disappearing around the Sun and won't be seen again until 2028.
"The asteroid’s orbit around the Sun is elongated (eccentric)," the European Space Agency [7]said . "It is currently moving away from Earth in almost a straight line, making it difficult to accurately determine its orbit by studying how its trajectory curves over time."
That orbit is going to be crucial as 2024 YR4 is now the highest-ranked near-Earth object (NEO) on the [8]Torino Impact Hazard Scale , where one is all clear, and 10 the end of life on Earth as we know it. 2024 YR4 is ranked at three, making it the most dangerous NEO on the books today.
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Practically speaking, though, astronomers estimate there's only a 1.3 percent chance of 2024 YR4 hitting us. The orbital track suggests it'll fly some distance above the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Arabian Sea, and South Asia. That distance hasn't been shared yet; it's likely to be comfortably large, it may be quite uncomfortably small.
[10]Russian boffins want to nuke asteroids
[11]ESA starts work on planetary defense mission, because Bruce Willis is retired
[12]We regret to inform you the massive asteroid NASA's all excited about probably won't hit Earth
[13]NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is returning with its first-ever asteroid sample
Given the asteroid's proportions, it's gonna leave a mark if it decides to abruptly check into Hotel Earth, and might trigger a tsunami if it hits the ocean, but it won't be a harbinger of extinction. It has a mass similar to the meteorite that blew up a few hundred miles of Russian taiga in the 1908 [14]Tunguska impact . The International Asteroid Warning Network [15]says [PDF] the worst-case blast radius for 2024 YR4 would probably be about 50 km (31 miles), and you [16]can simulate such impacts here.
Right now all efforts are on tracking the NEO to determine its orbit as exactly as possible. The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, for one, is following the object so that astroboffins can use the latest readings to adjust their predictions.
Don't forget that in 2004 an asteroid dubbed 99942 Apophis [17]was spotted , and at a quarter of a mile wide it makes 2024 YR4 look kinda puny. It reached four on the Torino scale, and was due to either smash somewhere in the Pacific in 2029 or 2036. Subsequent observations, though, confirmed [18]we're safe from Apophis for the [19]next century at least. ®
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[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_jQebmyvQU
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[5] https://www.planetary.org/articles/should-you-be-worried-about-asteroid-2024-yr4
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[7] https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Planetary_Defence/ESA_actively_monitoring_near-Earth_asteroid_2024_YR4
[8] https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/torino_scale.html
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z5ytV9Prkc4cCAWWXcykRAAAAYM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2016/04/12/russian_boffins_want_to_nuke_asteroids/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/17/esa_ramses_prelim_approval/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/02/asteroid_earth_flyby/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/01/nasas_osirisrex_spacecraft_is_returning/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/28/tunguska_object_came_from_mars_say_russian_boffins/
[15] https://iawn.net//documents/NOTIFICATIONS/IAWN_Potential_Impact_Notification_2024_YR4.pdf
[16] https://neal.fun/asteroid-launcher/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2005/10/31/nasa_has_a_plan/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2009/10/08/apophis_calculations/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/28/apophis_asteroid_safe/
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Astroid Catastrophe Monitoring Equipment
Asteroid Terrestrial Last Alert System . If you shoehorn those acronyms any harder there is going to be permanent damage.
Anyway, I'll re-read Lucifer's Hamner to see what should be done. Hiding out in the Sierra mountains IIRC and a gun to fend off canibals. But they are on the other side of the earth from where I am. No way I can get there unless I surf the tsunami over the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, and up the west coast of America.
Re: Astroid Catastrophe Monitoring Equipment
You could try hiding in the Atlas mountains.
Re: Astroid Catastrophe Monitoring Equipment
I'd want to know an accurately calculated impact site before making that decision.
Re: Astroid Catastrophe Monitoring Equipment
In the foothills leading down from Marrakesh?
(I'll take 70s obscure song references for 500, Alex)
Re: Astroid Catastrophe Monitoring Equipment
Hot fudge Sundae on Tuesday next week?
886 cans of spam
Who knew that spam could be so devastating ?
Re: 886 cans of spam
That's only the width. Now imagine a stack of tinned Spam that's 886 cans wide, 886 cans deep, and 886 cans high. That's 695 million cans of Spam. Moving at 38,700 mph. Does anyone have Bruce Willis's telephone number?
Bruce, and Billy Bob too
Well, our object collison budget's a million dollars, that allows us to track about 3% of the sky, and beggin' your pardon sir, but it's a big-ass sky.
Re: Bruce, and Billy Bob too
Which is why we only managed to spot it as it was moving AWAY from the Earth!
Re: 886 cans of spam
Well that is a new measuring unit for the reg standards bureau.
it used to be linguine with options to convert to
Double-decker bus
Brontosaurus
Devon fatberg
Osman
Giraffe
El reg need to update the standards converter https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html
Am I the only reader who read 'three' and was disappointed?
Come friendly asteroid, fall on earth! (apols. to John Betjeman)
I also thoroughly approve of the asteroid impact simulator running from a .fun domain.
Top marks on communicating the size of this asteroid - but I can’t visualise how fast it is moving. Can you clarify, perhaps a comparison with the speed of an African swallow?
to do that would require converting the asteroid's size in SpamTins into Coconuts and then extrapolating in terms of laden swallows. I tried but there wasn't enough room in the margin to show this.
If we just stuck with [1]one set of units people would become familiar with them and there would be no need invent a new unit for each measurement. As a bonus numbers from different sources would become easy to compare. To set the record straight: 2024 YR4 is currently moving away from Earth at 104.1 million furlongs per fortnight.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFF_system
I think we all know that FPF (furlongs per fortnight) has been discredited. I prefer to measure speed in how many average blue whales lengths you travel per hour. The most average blue whale I know is named Miles, so my system is called Miles per Hour (MPH). So the asteroid is travelling at 2,270,400 MPH. Nothing could be simpler.
Ah man, it's been a long week
... and I needed the laugh. Beer on me with thanks.
I can't fathom that out.
Here, it's called 0.5777% of the maximum velocity of a sheep in a vacuum.
[1]Amen.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html
*spherical* sheep in a vacuum!
Of uniform density, I assume.
@2024 YR4, I'd have some suggestions where to hit.
As do I... and my top pick, given the area they think is in the firing line, is the middle of a very uninhabited part of the Sahara. I would actually prefer that to a complete miss, because the footage and the science would both be amazing!
Makes note in diary
Remove hat that day.
Re: Makes note in diary
Wear sunscreen.
220million kg = 220K Metric Ton
I would have expected more than 'only' 8Mton blast; anyways the "Tsar bomb" was 50, I think we can handle 8. (Not going to be pretty, but it's not gonna be world-ending)
the "Tsar bomb" was 50, I think we can handle 8
From how close?
Northeners
I think this is one of those "Northeners, wear your big coat" situations.
8 Mton isn't far off the crowd pleasers that sat atop the Titan-II or SS18 ICBMs from the '60s, goodnight to anything standing within a couple of dozen miles.
The way Florida Man is going, the impact may only be witnessed by insects and a few of the smaller mammals...
...and Mick Jagger.
Let him build a golf resort in your country and you'll be his biggliest buddy :)
>as wide as 886 standard four-inch cans of spam laid end to end
This opens up the option for a measurement of length, the pork-parsec; the distance at which a 4" can of spam subtends an angle of 1 arcsecond. It works out at about 13miles, which is curious because an astronomical parsec is about 2x10^13 miles.
That means that an astronomical parsec is (if I put on my South African accent for a moment) 2 times tin to the power pork-parsec miles. I find that worryingly coincidental.
It's going to be okay: someone will figure out they got the decimal point on the wrong place and we'll be saved by a small dog.
/Mine's the one with the well-thumbed copy of HHGTTG in the pocket.
We'll need a lot of wrapping paper
And a very big bow.
According to planetary.org, the visit will be Dec. 22, 2032.[1]
Best to make a note to decorate the tree a few days early that year, just in case.
[1] good thing it isn't a Torino 10 or we'd all feel proper fools worrying about the end of the 32-bit epoch.
They should have called it the Torino Impact Threat Scale.