Asteroid Impact on Earth 2032 with Probability 1% and 8Mt Energy

Post by focusedone » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 3:54 PM UTC

me-vs-cat wrote: post #195

ddahlen wrote: post #84

I work on the Near Earth Object Surveyor space telescope (NEO Surveyor) writing simulation code which predicts which objects we will see. This one has drummed up a bit of interest due to its (relatively) high chance of impact. I actually spent quite a bit of time yesterday digging through archive images trying trying to see if it was spotted on some previous times it came by the Earth (no luck unfortunately). Since w…

> if it misses the Earth in 2032, it could hit the moon. Oh, that's not so ba--- Wait, isn't that what happens in Seveneves?

Post by echoangle » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

chrsw wrote: post #309

echoangle wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, blowing it up is going to create a lot of fragments with slightly different orbits, and some are going to have practically the same as the whole Asteroid had before. So the chance of anything at all hitting earth will increase, but the parts will be smaller. It would be like a bullet turning into buckshot during flight.

If we were talking about a projectile fired at relatively close range on the surface of the Earth I would agree with you. But we are talking about a very small object very far away with already only a 1% chance of impact. Buckshotting the object with a random explosion is unlikely to change the dynamics of system to point where you say with high confidence the chance of impact is much higher. Some fragments might hit…

Post by grapesodaaaaa » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:11 PM UTC

AISnakeOil wrote: post #324

ddahlen wrote: post #84

I work on the Near Earth Object Surveyor space telescope (NEO Surveyor) writing simulation code which predicts which objects we will see. This one has drummed up a bit of interest due to its (relatively) high chance of impact. I actually spent quite a bit of time yesterday digging through archive images trying trying to see if it was spotted on some previous times it came by the Earth (no luck unfortunately). Since w…

Very interesting. How can we get rich from this?

Post by __MatrixMan__ » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:14 PM UTC

elif wrote: post #291

Completely out of my domain and seat of pants rationing here, but although the impact probability is 1%, aren't we far far more certain about the /time/ at which it would strike earth? Could humanity collectively just migrate to the side of the world that will be shielded for a day?

Post by Galatians4_16 » Thu, Jan 30, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

SR2Z wrote: post #156

slackerIII wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great post, thank you! Where does the uncertainty (1%) come from? For example, is it more from our ability to precisely determine the orbit based on limited observations, or is it because orbits for objects like this just aren't predictable years out, or something else?

My guess is that small objects like this suffer greatly from the 3-body problem, and multiple trajectories are generated from various starting points inside our measured error bars for the current states of these objects. Small inaccuracies compound over the years.