The odds of a city-killer asteroid impact in 2032 keep rising
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Re: The odds of a city-killer asteroid impact in 2032 keep rising
#2Not any more it's at 0.28% https://blogs.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/2025/02/20/additiona...
NASA Downgrades the Risk of 2024 YR4 to Below 1% (45 points, 11 hours ago, 54 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43148259
Re: The odds of a city-killer asteroid impact in 2032 keep rising
#3Not any more it's at 0.28% https://blogs.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/2025/02/20/additiona... NASA Downgrades the Risk of 2024 YR4 to Below 1% (45 points, 11 hours ago, 54 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43148259
On a meta level, it seems worrying that the probability estimate might update that rapidly....
Re: The odds of a city-killer asteroid impact in 2032 keep rising
#4Not any more it's at 0.28% https://blogs.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/2025/02/20/additiona... NASA Downgrades the Risk of 2024 YR4 to Below 1% (45 points, 11 hours ago, 54 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43148259
On a meta level, it seems worrying that the probability estimate might update that rapidly....
My understanding is that it was due to the moon being full which caused them to not have as much of an ability to observe it during the past few estimations. In an article[0] linked from the above link they state:
> Now that skies are darker after a week of limited visibility around full moon, astronomers have resumed observations
The estimates changed a lot because they were being very transparent about the information as they were discovering it.
[0]: https://blogs.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/2025/02/19/dark-skie...
Re: The odds of a city-killer asteroid impact in 2032 keep rising
#5I heard that it's somewhat normal for the probably to rise before dropping to zero. This makes mathematical sense, since decreasing the size of the probable zone makes the earth a larger part of that zone until the zone fully excludes the earth.
Re: The odds of a city-killer asteroid impact in 2032 keep rising
#6Not any more it's at 0.28% https://blogs.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/2025/02/20/additiona... NASA Downgrades the Risk of 2024 YR4 to Below 1% (45 points, 11 hours ago, 54 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43148259
On a meta level, it seems worrying that the probability estimate might update that rapidly....
Why do you think this?
Every observation narrows the range of possible trajectories. After the initial discovery, a lot of observations were scheduled.
Re: The odds of a city-killer asteroid impact in 2032 keep rising
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
On a meta level, it seems worrying that the probability estimate might update that rapidly....
Why do you think this? Every observation narrows the range of possible trajectories. After the initial discovery, a lot of observations were scheduled.
Not "worrying" in a rational sense (i.e. we should put more thought into the possibility of this collision), but in a human emotional sense ("if NASA engineers can change their minds this quickly, surely we don't know nearly as much as we think, and the universe feels like a scarier place again").
Re: The odds of a city-killer asteroid impact in 2032 keep rising
#8I heard that it's somewhat normal for the probably to rise before dropping to zero. This makes mathematical sense, since decreasing the size of the probable zone makes the earth a larger part of that zone until the zone fully excludes the earth.
This.
Scott Manley explains it well in his video: https://youtu.be/Esk1hg2knno
Re: The odds of a city-killer asteroid impact in 2032 keep rising
#9The current odds (0.28% as gnabgid@ cites) are still uncomfortable. But also, most of the Earth's surface isn't a city, so maybe we should be even less worried.
But on the other hand, I do wonder if a city-killer blast in the wrong spot could trigger some kind of nuclear response in a jumpy geopolitical climate. I keep thinking about the time the USSR caught some weird atmospheric effect and nearly launched, save for the skepticism of a lone individual who chose to break with protocol...
Re: The odds of a city-killer asteroid impact in 2032 keep rising
#10I heard that it's somewhat normal for the probably to rise before dropping to zero. This makes mathematical sense, since decreasing the size of the probable zone makes the earth a larger part of that zone until the zone fully excludes the earth.
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