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Indeed. We've got facts and numbers but lack an expert that can put them together in any meaningful way.
Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
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Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#92Is 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.
> ~400m along it's biggest dimension Where did you find this information? I don't understand all the fields on the page, but don't see any number being 400 within an order of magnitude
400m in one dimension leaves a lot of room for variation. 400m x 1m x 1m is a lot less concerning than a 400m diameter sphere.
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only 400m in diameter.
... The Chelyabinsk meteor had ~20m of diameter. The impact energy of a 400m diameter asteroid is somewhere in the same ballpark as the deployed nuclear arsenal of the United States. Not extinction-level impact, but wherever it hit would definitely feel it.
Yes some place will feel it somehow, 70% chance it strikes an ocean and creates a tsunami.
But the world will go on, people will shrug their shoulders and go on with life.
If it was a 60 mile wide asteroid, now that would truly be the end.
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#94TDB is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barycentric_Dynamical_Time ?
Which following the contained link to Terrestrial Time (TT) states that TBD is relativity corrected TT, which itself is about 30 +/- seconds from UTC -- something much more familiar to we groundhogs...
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#95From other comments in this thread, it seems this risk has passed, but was known three days ago? Was any action taken at all? A 3% risk isn't small.
Is there any action that could have been taken? Genuinely curious, I read about a test of some technology for deflecting asteroids a few weeks ago on HN, but I don't think we really have those capabilities yet?
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#96Is 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.
> ~400m along it's biggest dimension Where did you find this information? I don't understand all the fields on the page, but don't see any number being 400 within an order of magnitude
Everything I wrote was from skimming the comments here. This is the 400m: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37138510
I was hoping someone more familiar with this stuff could write a definitive summary.
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would also very much like to know what the consequences of an impact might be
This paper is an interesting read: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457651... Not my area of expertise, but it sounds like a deep ocean impact would not be completely catastrophic. With only ∼1% of the asteroid kinetic energy being converted into tsunami waves and with the stronger decay with distance implies that moderate size asteroids (100–500 m in diameter) striking the deep ocean basins off…
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Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#98The public is unanimously in favor of funding asteroid protection mechanisms and research. It's even higher support than the military.
Naturally what do we do with that money and goodwill instead? Yes! Let's build a massive space telescope which takes pictures that are only marginally better than the other multi-billion dollar space telescope!
Protect the Earth? Fuck that, don't ya know kid? She's toast anyway because the Sun will explode soon! Also get in loser, we're going to Mars!
Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#99Re: Asteroid ZTm0038 with a >3% impact probability
#100I'm having a weirdly difficult time finding some basic ELI5 answers.
- What is the probability that this asteroid will hit us?
- What is the time interval where that probability applies?
- Do we have a probability distribution for where it might hit? I don't know anything about anything, but I assume we know what *general direction* it's coming from?
- Do we have a probability distribution for the potential blast radius?