Yes, but the audience score is at 80%.
I’m going all in on the potential straight.
Don’t give me hope
Is it wrong to hope it hits us?
Yes, because it’s not going to be nearly as catastrophic as it sounds. What we need is a real world ender.
Is it wrong to hope it hits the specific city I live in? 😅
Sometimes hope is all we’ve got.
With more data collected over time, the chance has already been reduced to 0.28% https://blogs.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/2025/02/20/additional-observations-continue-to-reduce-chance-of-asteroid-impact-in-2032/
It was nice knowing yall
Well it would still have an impact energy less than that of tsar bomba, and probably just hit an ocean.
Everyone saying “they can evacuate” clearly doesn’t remember how bad the covid response was.
There will be anti-space conspiracy theorists. The ownership class would demand people continue working until the last possible minute (and beyond). It would be politicized, because some people are unbelievably stupid, cruel, and selfish, and enough people are so stupid they’ll buy in.
Now, if we could make the meteor fall on a location occupied solely by the people who don’t believe in science…
At least “crushed by asteroid” is not contagious.
Look, it’s really simple. Just don’t look up. If we collectively ignore the problem, it won’t be a problem.
They could make a movie about that!
Also the impact risk corridor passes through states that are poorly equipped for large civil defence operations: Ethiopia and the CAR are in civil wars, Yemen is in a civil war with the majority of the country under the control of an unrecognized government, and the South Sudanese government is quite week—being at peace only for the last 5 years
Everyone saying “they can evacuate” clearly doesn’t remember how bad the covid response was.
or not paying attention to political winds welcoming the evacuees.
It would make sense to have a more cooperative world, even if cooperation involves “victims” compensating those able to protect them. Hope the US can continue to contribute tracking resources, at least.
… that’s exactly what would happen, it would land on all the people who don’t believe in science.
If this happens frequently enough the Republican Party will just vanish.
Outside of extremely extenuating circumstances, this isn’t a worry. We already have proof-of-concept tech like DART to divert asteroids, aerospace engineers can use this to get governments to fund them even better, asteroid goes behind the sun for 3 years, asteroid diverting technology advances even further, in 2028 when the path of travel becomes more precise the chance of hitting us gets revised down to zero, and we’ve advanced our technology should anything more serious come our way in the future
yeah, we really don’t have to worry.
With the DART mission tech, we can get our hit chances into the 90 percents
Gotta pump those numbers up
Backup is that we have a team of deep sea oil drillers go up there
@OneTwoThree @fossilesque actually we want this asteroid to hit Earth. Remove one threat from the sky. Divert to hit in a safe place. This one is safe if it hit in a remote location.
I begin to worry when I see this asteroid still in the sky and how it becomes gradually bigger
“I’m gonna go all in.”
this is my favorite poker sim
Ngl mine too. I ended up never finishing it and using it as a great poker sim. 😅
So what level of calamity are we talking about here? 3% doesn’t sound that low to me.
I recall hearing it was medium-ish nuclear weapon sized, but not wipe out civilisation size. Wherever it’s heading would need to be evacuated.
That was a week ago, though, and I’m sure the size projections will be updated as we get more data.
This is correct. Current estimates place a possible impact event at an energy release of ~7.8 Megatons of TNT. Approximately 500 times the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Comparable to the Tunguska Event. This is accounting for current size estimates under 100m in diameter.
It is a very serious asteroid. The Tunguska Event could have killed millions of people. The primary reason it didn’t was because it happened in the middle of Siberia. The primary witnesses to the devastation were local native groups who still lived that for out, of which there were few. It wasn’t properly investigated for over a decade because of the remoteness of where it happened and the low priority as it didn’t affect very many people. If that happened over a major city the consequences would be utterly devastating.
It’s not K-T Extinction event level, but it is nonetheless quite serious.
We’ll get a better idea of whether it’ll hit or not in 2028 the next time it passes close to earth, which will give us plenty of time to respond before it might hit in 2032.
Except that 2028 would also be our window to do something about it before it disappears back into space. There needs to be a plan now, even if that plan is to wait and see where it’s going to hit.
In short, we already have a plan. DART proved that we can do it, and off-the-shelf rockets like the Falcon 9 have plenty of performance. All that remains is to wait until early 2028 when we get a proper fix on the asteroid, then we’ve got 7 or 8 months to prep and launch a mission before the window of opportunity closes.
If it is on a collision course we probably have time to do something about it. If we don’t do anything about it it’ll probably hit the ocean and it’s not big enough to cause any kind of crazy mega tsunami or anything like that. If it does hit land it’ll probably hit in the middle of nowhere and kill, like, 12 people, and if it does manage to beat all the odds and hit a major city it will be a major disaster, but it’s not going to be the apocalypse or anything.
Well we wouldn’t have to worry about global warming anymore
This size meteor would destroy a city but not have lasting planet-scale effects. Think Tonguska event.
Yes we would? This isnt a planet killer. Its a city killer. Plus theyll know where itll hit and can evacuate the area before hand. There is no reason a single person should die from this rock unless someone does something stupid.
They arent 100% sure on the size but itll be a regional disaster. Few hundred square miles of destruction. And theyll be able to evacuate the area before hand. Itll land somewhere between south america and india theres a line map you can find of the area that could be hit and thatll get narrowed down as time goes on. We will know where its gonna hit far in advance if it does hit.
Revised down to 0.27%
Just when it was getting good too! One of these days…
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An interesting thought is that if it actually hits, this might provide the impetus for some countries to get their shit together and get into space for good. Potentially changing the course of history.