Odds of asteroid YR4 hitting Earth just went up again, reaching new high
Odds of asteroid YR4 hitting Earth just went up again, reaching new high
The asteroid, big enough to wipe out an entire city, now has a higher chance of smashing into our home planet in 2032, according to NASA.
You're viewing a single thread.
This has been a good test of our planetary defense procedures, and will be an even better test on the off chance the probability resolves to 100%. I'm rooting for an impact trajectory, since we'd either get to see humanity's first real asteroid deflection or witness the largest asteroid impact in over a century. (Hopefully in the ocean or a sparsely populated area!)
And hopefully it can be highly rich in rare minerals, so that when the ashes of WW3 finally settle down, at least the future generations of humans or not-human sapient entities will at least get something good out of the whole ridiculous mess we're currently in lol
Unfortunately, at the speed they travel, an asteroid will be vaporised in the impact. Whatever rare earths there are will be scatter as a fine powder over a large area.
Unfortunately, I half expect that if we get a 100% chance, governments are going to see where it's going to land (sea/Africa) and decide it's not worth the spend/let's see what happens if we let it hit.
Really hope I'm wrong, but I don't have a lot of faith in humanity anymore.
Why would we mitigate the asteroid if its cheaper to clean up after a non-consequential impact?
To test our ability to stop it. If one was going to hit a major city, that's not the best situation to be trying something out for the first time.
Seems like a cost benefit analysis that nobody here is going to be an authority on.
If the cost of a recall for a defective car is higher than the cost to settle wrongful death lawsuits, they don't do a recall.
Who is they? What situation are you talking about? Are you sure they would do that? Are you making up a scenario to prove a point?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls
The General Motors ignition switch recalls refers to February 6, 2014 when General Motors recalled about 800,000 of its small cars due to faulty ignition switches, which could shut off the engine while the vehicle was in motion and thereby prevent the airbags from inflating.[1] The company continued to recall more of its cars over the next several months, resulting in nearly 30 million cars recalled worldwide[2] and paid compensation for 124 deaths.[3] The fault had been known to GM for at least a decade prior to the recall being declared.[4] As part of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement, GM agreed to forfeit $900 million to the United States.[5]
Isn't this also a ford thing, where they expected the recall of the explody pinto to cost more than the lawsuits for the wrongful deaths?
It's a paraphrase of a quote from Fight Club but yeah it's a real thing. Cost benefit analysis is a removed
A recall costs money for a corporation to perform. A project like astroid deflection is an opportunity to funnel more government spending into the pockets of defense and space contractors. These are not the same.
Chances are greater that it lands in the ocean somewhere.
I hope it's cataclysmic
It's only a city-killer, but last I saw there were a few cities in the estimated impact area. Fortunately we'll get a better idea of whether it's going to hit in 2028. Plenty of time to launch a redirection mission or evacuate the danger zone.
Not 2028, but 2032. It is guaranteed to miss in 2028, but could potentially impact us in 2032
Yeah, but it comes close enough in 2028 to get a good fix on its trajectory and to launch a mission to it.
I see what you're saying now, sorry. Yeah as it passes by we should be able to say with certainty when it actually will hit whether that is 2032 or 2432
The problem is that countries east of the projected impact will say that a deflection attempt will be viewed as a nuclear attack. Shit will get messy real quick.