An asteroid was discovered Late last year, the chances of its shocked planet Earth continued to promote the public interest because it was less than eight years from now.
Two weeks ago ARS first wrote NASA’s Near Earth Object Research Center specifies an estimated 1.9% chance of impact on Earth in 2032. NASA’s latest estimates may be a strike Increased to 3.2%. Now, this is not particularly high, but it is not zero either.
Naturally, the prospect of hitting a large rock ball that has dozens of meters on Earth is somewhat worrying. This is large enough to cause local damage near its impact site, which may have been upgraded about 500 square miles (1,295 square kilometers) in forests in remote Siberia under the orders of the Tunguska incident in 1908.
To understand why NASA’s odds are changing, and whether we should focus on 2024, ARS is related to Robin George Andrews, author of the recently published book How to Kill Asteroids. A good time for a publication date, is it?
ARS: Why does the impact odds increase?
Robin George Andrews: Now, the orbit of the asteroid is not yet clear, because we only have a limited number of telescope observations. But even though the rock zipper is far away from Earth, some telescopes are still trying to monitor it and expand our understanding of the sun around the arc of the asteroid orbit. Odds have fluctuated in both directions over the past few weeks, but overall, they have risen. That’s because astronomers’ uncertainty about their true orbit has narrowed, but the Earth has not yet completely separated from that uncertainty area. As a certain proportion of residual uncertainty, the earth is taking up more space, so at present, its chances are rising.
It can be thought of as a beam of light coming out of the front of that asteroid. When we get a better idea of its orbit, the beam shrinks, but if the earth hasn’t fallen out of that beam, it takes up a greater proportion of space. Therefore, for a while, the odds of the impact of asteroids rose. With enough observation, the Earth will eventually fall out of that shrinking beam, affecting the odds suddenly drop to zero. Of course, another option is that they will be close to 100%.
What do we know about the destructive potential of asteroids?
The damage it may cause will be located in a roughly urban size area, so if it hits the middle of the ocean or the vast desert, nothing will happen. But it may hit the city directly, or destroy a city altogether.
The key factor here (if you have to choose one) is the mass of the asteroid. Each time the asteroid is twice as long as it is (assuming roughly spherical) it brings 8 times the kinetic energy. So if the asteroid is at the smaller end of the estimated size range (40 meters), it is like a small nuclear bomb exploded in the sky. At this size, unless it is very iron, it will not survive the atmosphere, so it will explode in the air. There will be moderate structural damage under the explosion, and less structural damage over a few dozen miles. A 90-meter asteroid, whether it lands on the ground or not, can exceed 10 times. Then, the large nuclear weapons exploded. A large city will be severely damaged and the area below the explosion will be annihilated.
