CHILLING UPDATE ON THE CITY DESTROYING ASTEROID DISCOVERED BY NASA
In the upcoming years, there is a chance that Earth will be struck by an asteroid big enough to wipe out a whole city. Plans are currently being developed to safeguard humanity against '2024 YR4', the potentially fatal space rock that was first spotted in December. It is reportedly as large as the Statue of Liberty.
The risks of launching rockets at an asteroid to divert it from its course have now been highlighted by scientist Dr Robin George Andrews, author of the book How to Kill an Asteroid. Let's start by discussing NASA's emergency decision to counter the threat. To ascertain the asteroid's dimensions as accurately as possible, a multinational team of astronomers will be granted access to the James Webb Space Telescope. That way, they can try to figure out where it would hit Earth and how much damage it would do.
According to NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), the asteroid's chances of colliding with our planet are one in forty-three, or 2.3 percent out of 100, and the collision is anticipated to occur in 2032. Who knows if those odds will rise again? When it was first observed, it was estimated that there was a one-in-83 chance that it would affect us.
In any case, Andrews took to Twitter to post a long but informative thread in which he mentioned the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the first mission ever devoted to studying and proving a particular technique of asteroid deflection by altering an asteroid's motion in space through kinetic impact. It struck its targets, the asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos, in September 2022 after being launched in November 2021.
Since those parts could still reach Earth, nobody wants to unintentionally "disrupt" an asteroid, according to Andrews. It's like turning a cannonball into a shotgun spray, as I often say. However, it won't be seen again until 2028, when it makes another flyby of Earth. If we attempt to hit it with something like DART, a lot of things could go wrong.
It could be bigger or smaller. We might not be able to deflect it with one spacecraft if it's too large. It would take multiple strikes to hit it flawlessly without breaking it. And in just a few years, we might unintentionally deflect it—but not enough to keep it from hitting the planet," he added. After that, it still strikes Earth, but it does so in a different location. "Perhaps in 2024, YR4's odds will increase, and we'll use a monster-sized spacecraft to successfully deflect it in 2028. Or perhaps we'll violate a tactful taboo and attempt to deflect it with a nuclear warhead, which would give the asteroid a stronger blow than DART."
