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.
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From the article
In a new update, the space agency has increased the chances of asteroid 2024 YR4 colliding with Earth, with the probability of impact rising to 3.1 per cent or one-in-32 odds of impact — the highest probability of a collision yet.
IE - 3%.
3% events happen all of the time!
The article stresses that this probability has been going up over the past year or so, which is likely neither here nor there, but I can totally understand how it’s alarming in a post-COVID world.
Slightly more likely than rolling two sixes.
But mar el lago is not in the impact corridor
Statistics isn't my strong suit. What's the probability of the probability increasing given that it has been increasing over time? Should we project the future probability to include this growth?
Scott Manley said in his video that it would almost certainly increase right up to a point where it would (probably) drop to 0.
Imagine the asteroid position is going to be in a range 1 to 100. Earth will be at position 31 when passes. That's a 1% chance.
Now I tell you that it's actually a 10 to 90 range ( like they predict the asteroid a bit more precisely).
The chance is now 1 in 80 or 1.25% It went up!
Now I say I've got more info, the number is 30 to 70. The chance is 1/40, 2.5% time to panic, it's getting worse!
Next it's 40 to 70. That doesn't include 31. The chance just dropped to 0.
So the increase is showing a more accurate prediction still includes hitting earth, but at some point that prediction might show that it will miss.
Really no idea personally. My hunch would be that it’s technically a fuzzy problem (what’s the system being measured here exactly?) but also one around which we have some experience and wisdom established by now. Otherwise, the probability has changed like twice or three times, so any statistical inference would likely be close to meaningless with that little data.