More data will likely reduce the chance of an impact to zero. If not, we have options.
  • MrTrono@lemmy.world
    98·
    6 days ago

    Am I supposed to panic because it’s unlikely to hit? Meanwhile I’m out here wishing for death by meteor.

      • PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk
        26·
        6 days ago

        I mean, if I was going to go out, then getting my shit mixed by a meteor is pretty awesome. I’m sure I’ll make it on to a few Buzzfeed articles over the next ten or twenty years.

        All things considered though, it would indeed be nice if it landed somewhere inconsequential like the ocean; the desert; or Florida.

        • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          6·
          6 days ago

          Florida

          You jest, but the Kennedy Space Center is in Florida. Putting the world’s busiest spaceport out of commission might put a damper on future asteroid deflection missions…

          • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            6 days ago

            Eh, they can launch from Vandenburg if it’s that important. (Or, ya know, Guiana or Baikonur or whatever.)

        • murmelade@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          6 days ago

          Hell yeah this would be my choice too on preferred way to die. There’s something beautifully deterministic about it, a random space rock flying around for millions of years and all my lifes choices and circumstances ending up in standing on the exact spot the meteorite ends its journey. Right in my head. Lovely.

    • LouNeko@lemmy.world
      26·
      6 days ago

      Yeah I’ll take one for the team. I go to the point of impact and when it finaly hits, I’m gonna try to punch it back into orbit.

      You don’t have to thank me.

      • joelfromaus@aussie.zoneEnglish
        2·
        6 days ago

        Honestly, at this point, there might be enough of us volunteering to bounce that fucker back to Jupiter. A lot of us will be turned into jam but I think it’s worth the sacrifice.

    • lordnikon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      6 days ago

      Not to be a doomer but most of us will be dead by then I just hope the meteor takes out any lucky oligarchs still alive in a bunker.

      • Omgpwnies@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        6 days ago

        You think “most of us” will be dead in … 7 years? That’s pretty doomer if you ask me.

        • lordnikon@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          6 days ago

          I just read the ipcc reports and if you read those and don’t start a bucket list for the time we have left. I don’t know what to tell you. Trust me I don’t want to be this way I will fight where I can but I’m going to live my life the same time way a terminal patient lives. Cherish the days we got and if I’m wrong I will eat crow happily with a big smile on my face.

        • Zetta@mander.xyz
          6·
          6 days ago

          Forever, humanity could only ever conceivably expand so far due to the expansion of the universe, so as far as we know a still insignificant portion of the universe we could colonize.

          • Zacryon@feddit.org
            1·
            5 days ago

            Until we make some scientific breakthrough which might solve that problem. If there is any possible of course. There is so much we still don’t know.

  • AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee
    15·
    6 days ago

    Scientists estimate that 2024 YR4 is between 130 to 300 feet (40 and 90 meters) wide, large enough to cause localized devastation near the impact site. The asteroid responsible for the Tunguska event of 1908, which leveled some 500 square miles (1,287 square kilometers) of forest in remote Siberia, was probably about the same size.

    So nothing to worry about

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
    15·
    6 days ago

    That’s 0.9% more than the last time I checked. I know those are still really low odds, but we can hope…

    • quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      1·
      18 hours ago

      I science podcast I follow already warned last week that the probability would go up at first as they narrow down its trajectory.
      They gave the example of a fan closing, as it gets narrow, the earth represents a bigger percentage of the remaining fan. If you keep closing the fan the Earth eventually will fall outside the fan and the percentage drop to zero.

      Unless it turns out that it is dead center.

    • psud@aussie.zoneEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      One of the things they’re doing is calculating what it’s orbit would have to be to hit the Earth, and where it would have had to have been on its last orbit to be in that orbit

      So they can look at any astronomical images of that part of the sky from then and see if it’s in the right place

      If they find images of the right part of the sky at the right time and the asteroid is not in it, they know it’s not on an orbit that will hit the Earth in 2032

    • psud@aussie.zoneEnglish
      4·
      6 days ago

      It’s not big enough to fix anything. If it hits, it won’t hit America or Europe

      It’s in the big nuke scale of energy, enough to do a lot of damage to a small area. Were it to hit a city, the city would need a lot of rebuilding. Were it to hit, few people would be in danger as we will have years of warning. The only people in the impact area would be “storm chasers” travelling to see the impact