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Asteroid 2024 YR4 no longer poses significant impact risk (www.esa.int)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The expectation value was huge at one point: a few percent probability of hitting the planet multiplied by the enormous cost of it hitting the planet (in terms of life and money and environmental damage).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

The asteroid is way too small to pose a significant risk unless it hit a city - which would have been evacuated months before the asteroid hit.

Significant economic and cultural damage for the affected country? Sure.

See this FAQ from NASA:

The damage caused by an impacting asteroid depends greatly on the exact size and composition of the asteroid. The exact size of 2024 YR4 is still uncertain, but an airburst is a likely scenario for its size range. If the asteroid were to enter the atmosphere over the ocean, models indicate that airbursting objects of this size would be unlikely to cause significant tsunami, either from the middle of the ocean or even nearer shore.

If the asteroid entered the atmosphere over a populated region, an airburst of an object on the smaller side of the size range, about 130 - 200 feet (40 - 60 meters) could shatter windows or cause minor structural damage across a city. An asteroid about 300 feet (90 meters) in size, which is much less likely, could cause more severe damage, potentially collapsing residential structures across a city and shattering windows across larger regions.