In late December, astronomers using the Asteroid Asteroid Landfish System (ATLAS) telescope observed a new asteroid near our planet. An object called YR4 in 2024 was discovered on December 27 with a size of 40 to 100 meters. The approach to the asteroid Earth was two days before the YR4 was about 800,000 kilometers from our planet. It is twice as far as the month. “I was zooming on the earth,” said John Tonley, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii. Such objects are not unusual. In the solar system area, there are thousands of asteroids above this size. However, this was required to be more careful to prevent our planets from taking risks in the future.
However, instead of eliminating the impact, the follow -up observation results did the opposite. On January 27, a NASA service called Sentry monitored and upgraded the influence of the potential asteroids by pooling with telescopes around the world together. Y24 risk Until our planet is unprecedented. YR4 could collide with the earth with a 1.3 % probability on December 22, 2032. This evaluation supports threat level 3. TrinoscaleAn index that ranks the dangers of poses on Earth in the order of asteroids from 1 to 10. Two days later, the European Space Organization (ESA) announced that it was estimated. Similar impact riskAnd this story was reported, and NASA’s Sentry Service raised the shock risk to 1.6 %.
The possibility of the impact is still low. “This is 99 % of the possibility of overlooking. That’s what we expect,” said Davide Farnocchia, a scientist at an object research center near the NASA Jet Promotion Research Institute. 。 However, this is a higher shock risk for our planet, but the risk of asteroids since Apofis is estimated to collide with our planet in 2029 for a short time in December 2004. I was. The trajectory has been sophisticated so that astronomers can be overlooked with confidence. They expect it to happen in YR4, but so far, the ongoing analysis is heading in other directions. “The probability is increasing,” says Juan Luis Cano, a planetary defensive coordinator at the Earth Object Adjustment Center near the ESA. And it may bring an interesting dilemma.
About the support of science journalism
If you are enjoying this article, consider supporting journalism that has won. Subscription. By purchasing a subscription, it will help you secure the future of a story that has an impactful story that forms our world today.
When an asteroid of the size of the YR4 hits our planet, it does not end the life of the earth, but it is devastating. In that size, the impact will be equivalent to the “10 -Megaton bomb”, Tonory says. “Everything within 3-4 kilometers is incinerated,” says Tonry. “Probably all up to 10 kilometers will be destroyed. It’s not a nuclear explosion, but it’s a very hot explosion. There is a huge fireball that causes a fire up to 15 km. It will kill many people.
The observation results suggest that the YR4 is a stone -like asteroid, not a planet with a lot of metals, says Melissa Brooker, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona. In other words, instead of reaching the surface of the earth, it may explode from the pressure of the upper atmosphere. This could affect the same as the famous Tung Sky event in 1908. This caused suspicious asteroids or comets to rupture Russia and flatten the 2,150 square kilometer remote Siberian forest. “I think YR4 is almost the same size as the Tunguska event. [object]”Says Bruker. A recent example of this impact was that 20 meters of meteors in Russia was estimated to be 20 meters wide, crushed windows and injured hundreds of people.
As you can see in a very large telescope in the southern European astronomical stand immediately after the discovery of an object in December 2025, it is a very large telescope in the southern European Observatory in the southern European. YR4. Earth on December 22, 2032. However, the possibilities have not been completely excluded yet.
It is not possible to say where YR4 attacks our planet, but it can be geographically restricted where the earth hits on the expected shock date on December 22, 2032. More, Daniel Bamburger, a German amateur astronomer, says. Calculated the possibility of the asteroid impact corridor. The threats are threatened by the Pacific Oceans from the Pacific Oceans to the northern United States, the Atlantic Ocean, the Africa south of Sahara, the Arabia Sea and South Asia. “Someday, I knew to find such an object with a very high impact,” he said.
Obviously far away, the YR4 impact risk remains on the notification, says Richard Bingel, a planetary scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which created Trinoscale in 1997. Although it is far away, the odds can worsen rapidly, and it takes years to plan and execute if you try to deviate or reduce the impact. If astronomers look at the asteroids further and track the track, the ranking of Turin may decrease to level 1 and eventually reach zero. 8 scale is the highest level possible on asteroids of this size. “Level 8 means a certain clash,” says Binsel.
If astronomers find the historical observations of YR4 from long -term surveys and gain knowledge of the trajectory over a long period of time, the risk of asteroid colliding with our planet may be immediately rejected. “It’s easy to see if it had an impact or not,” says Bamberger. “That will be the end of the story.” Astronomers may have had such observations during the telescope survey that operated when the asteroids had previously passed the earth in 2016. I think, but so far, archive search has been shortened. “We’ve been doing this for two weeks now, but unfortunately not succeeded,” Kano says.
And time is essential. The asteroid is now away from the world, and by April it will be invisible to the telescope. The next opportunity to observe the asteroid to evaluate the threat will not arrive outside the next Slim opportunity to evaluate the threat. This is the only pass before the anxiety deadline on December 22, 2032. Until then, the shock risk is not dangerous. Thus, caution may require a provisional easing strategy, even if the asteroid may be attacked.
“When a whipping comes in 2028, everything may be ready when new observation results come in,” says Tonry. Alternatively, if the asteroid does not hit the earth, he adds, “We can decide to leave it as it is.”
Preparing for such precautionary measures may happen as soon as a Conference on the UN Space Mission Planning Planning Group and the International asteroid warning network is held between space organizations. “I will look at this object very carefully,” Kano says. If the risk of shock cannot be eliminated by April, it may be necessary to seriously discuss the outlook for the 2028 biased mission. “Until 8 years [potential] The impact is a very challenging scenario, “Kano says. “Mission design and construction will take 3-5 years. That will really be restricted.” Such a mission design will be changed to the asteroid trajectory in September 2022. It may resemble the successful NASA’s double asthma redirection test.
Farnockia says that if the bias are not an option, the following may be exploring the predicted shocking evacuation measures. If the asteroid threats do not vary as expected, such a miserable debate has been far away, assuming that they will happen at all. The overwhelmingly possible scenario is to prove that more observations in YR4 miss our planet and do not take risks. And there are many available telescopes that can observe them. Kano says he applied for time with the NASA James Webb Space Telescope to observe the asteroid, but Bruker can use the Hawaiian Keck Observatory to find YR4.
In a very uneasy uncertainty, the rapid progress of the astronomer’s reaction to YR4 provides reasons for optimism. Natural disasters, especially the universe, may be helpless, as if you may be opposed to the extreme disaster as if throwing a rock in the earth on the earth, but a potentially intimidating asteroid is rewarded. Global orders for potentially possible research have been rewarded. A few decades ago, it was a tall order to simply detect objects like YR4, but it goes without saying that it tracks the route and the possibility of destruction accurately. Today, the universe scientists are determined how dangerous they are, as they are very close to completing the census of objects near the earth. “All the efforts we have been doing in the past 20 years are completely concentrated on finding asteroids and evaluating the possibility of them affecting the earth,” Kano says. “So we are here.”
Editor Note (1/31/24): This article was edited after posting to correct the name of the asteroid 2024 YR4.