I'm surprised Elon Musk didn't pick up on this a couple days ago and launch something at it.
Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
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Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#72Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
This video has comparisons of devastation that would be caused by different sizes (around 7:50 mark) of asteroids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wrc4fHSCpw
So a 500m is roughly a couple thousand or ten thousand times more than a Hiroshima nuke?
More like 50,000 or so (back of the envelope).
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#74Is there an english / eli5 if you like, summary of what this means? I gather that today or yesterday an asteroid ~400m along it's biggest dimension ultimately came within x km of earth, that was close enough there was a nontrivial chance it would hit us? And this is big enough to make a 30 mile crater? And we only found out it was coming a couple days ago? Sounds like a pretty big deal if that's accurate.
That's just measure of uncertainty in out measurements, unless we're saying there was a ~3% chance someone would do an emergency asteroid redirection to make it hit.
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#75I'm aware that it already passed its closest approach, but what does >3% even mean? 100% is >3%, but 3.000001% is >3% too. Was an impact certain at some point and the probability degraded to a bit above 3% over the course of the asteroid's trajectory? If so, I think I'd like to have a heads up when the probability is still closer to 100%, before it drops?
It was 3.4% https://newton.spacedys.com/neodys2/NEOScan/risk_page/ZTm003... If you're not logged in to Twitter, I don't think you can scroll from the linked tweet up to see the one this page was linked from, so I put it here.
I think the link works just fine and I can see it's at 3.4% right now, but was mostly wondering why it's written as >3% in the title. Most likely it's meant as ~3% like other people suggested and I shouldn't be reading to much in it :)
Thank you for taking the effort to write your comment.
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
3 days ago, it was first seen. About a dozen observations. F***, it's not fun that these pass with so little forewarning. ZTm0038* C2023 08 12.49542 06 32 33.23 +15 57 35.5 18.86rUNEOCPI41 Is the first entry, and asterisk-marked, on https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/scout/#/object/ZTm0038 at the bottom, in the Observations section. Unusual (new to me) format. Appears to me, first guess to read: [object] [yr] [m] [day.time-d…
Not to spoil your lunch or anything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU1QPtOZQZU Of course 500 Km is a big difference with 400 meters but to those near the point of impact it wouldn't matter and the global effects would still be beyond anything in our history. This is one interpretation of what this could look like: https://youtu.be/ZyyrfB8s5cY?t=152
The difference between the 500km asteroid impact in the video, and a 400m asteroid impact is the difference between a man jumping, and a man jumping to the moon.
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#77[flagged]
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#78Here's a visualization of its orbit, Earth in green, object in teal: http://orbitsimulator.com/gravitySimulatorCloud/yr/gsim2023.... It passed about 9 hours ago.
VSauce with packages summary for passive consumption. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wrc4fHSCpw
And jacquesm's replies to my other comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37139144
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to spoil your lunch or anything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU1QPtOZQZU Of course 500 Km is a big difference with 400 meters but to those near the point of impact it wouldn't matter and the global effects would still be beyond anything in our history. This is one interpretation of what this could look like: https://youtu.be/ZyyrfB8s5cY?t=152
The difference between the 500km asteroid impact in the video, and a 400m asteroid impact is the difference between a man jumping, and a man jumping to the moon.
Yes, it is the difference between a sterilization level event and one that is probably survivable. But it would still be the most significant impact in all of recorded history and to get to a larger one you'd have to go back a long, long time.
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
This seems like it's off by ~6 orders of magnitude (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event )
Amusing addendum, in order for this asteroid to have a 5Kt impact energy it would need to be traveling at around 50 mph as it impacts earth.
A typical impact velocity would be something closer to 30,000 mph.