The chances that an asteroid, known as 2024 years4, could strike the earth in seven years has recently fluctuated, but experts are not preparing for the worst.
At the end of 2024, a telescope funded by NASA in Rio Hurtado, Chile, spotted for the first time 2024 years and a months later, scientists concluded that there were more than 1% Luck that the asteroid would crash on the earth in December 2032.
When scientists first reported their results in January, they expected the future asteroid trajectory and the probability of impact to change as observation data has been collected and analyzed. This is exactly what happened.
On Tuesday, astronomers reported that the probability of 2024 years of collision with the earth increased to around 3%, which is unusual for a small asteroid which is only 130 to 300 feet wide. On Wednesday, this impact assessment fell to 1.5%.
“But the probability of impact remains low, so people should not really be too concerned about this,” said Davide Farnocchia, navigation engineer at the NASA laboratory jet and the Center for Near Earth Object Studies.
Is it normal for the risk of impact to increase so quickly?
Yes, there are scientific reasons for which the change in probability of impact can suddenly increase. But probability can also suddenly drop.
Initially, you may have a small probability of impact because “you cannot exclude the possible collision with the earth, (but) at some point, the probability will go to zero,” said Farnocchia.
When an asteroid is identified, scientists cannot identify its exact future location, but can rather collect data to predict its location in a range. If this range rides the earth, this is where there is a risk of collision, NASA Space Flight reported.
With more observation data, the predictions of astronomers of the asteroid trajectory and the future location become more precise.
The current beach of the 2024 -year -old trajectory – on the basis of hundreds of observations collected – is still being evaluated, so that the beach is large and currently overlapping the earth. This is why we see an increased percentage of possible impact.
While astronomers continue to collect data, the range could so much shrink that it no longer overlaps the earth, and the chances of 2024 years hitting our planet will become zero.
The current 2024 -year -old trajectory is almost a straight line away from the earth, and astronomers will continue to collect observation data until they are out of sight. They have until the beginning of April to follow the possible collision course of the asteroid and the future location.
You can follow the published results of astronomers on the Sentry web page.
Where could the asteroid?
In the unlikely case that the asteroid trajectory connects to the earth, its point of view would be somewhere along a “risk corridor” which extends through the eastern peaceful ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, the Oman Sea and South Asia, according to the International asteroid alert network.
Have we ever experienced an asteroid event like this one?
Yes, astronomers point to the asteroid 99942 APOPHIS – 1,099 feet wide and identified for the first time in 2004.
According to NASA officials, at the time of its initial observation, Apophis was one of the most dangerous asteroids in heaven, with the threat of barrel to the earth in 2029.
During the first assessments of the risk of impact, Apophis reached a note of 4 on the Torino scale, which categorizes potential impact events on earth.
The scale from 0 to 10 varies of No Hazard (Torino Scale 0), to normal (torino scale 1), to deserve attention by astronomers (Torino scale 2 to 4), threatening (Torino scale 5 to 7) to a certain collision (Torino scale 8 to 10).
When collecting additional observation and evaluation data, scientists have excluded the probability of impact for Apophis, for the moment, with a small chance of impact in 2068 declared unlikely.
As 2024, he is currently classified as Torino 3.
It is rare that an asteroid is assessed at Torino Scale 3, because this categorization only occurs for asteroids greater than 65 feet with a probability of 1% or more.
Even if this asteroid hits the earth, it could burn in the atmosphere and become a much smaller meteorite before it is shining.
Slightly larger asteroids can pass through the atmosphere but to crash in places that cause a minimum or no immediate damage, according to the United States Geological Survey. Many meteorites are found in the ocean or in open areas.
