this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2025
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Astronomy

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Is there any way to get it here sooner?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 month ago

Fucking finally goddamn

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Reading this headline instantly brought a huge smile to my face 😁

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Can we speed that up a bit?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Wow this is the most depressing comment section I've ever seen.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

it's just standard "haha self harm funi", it's so easy to post and reliably gets a few upvotes, so it's just a kneejerk response to posts like these.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Yeah, even for Lemmy this is bad. I hope most of them are semi-facetious?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Scientists estimate that 2024 YR4 is between 130 to 300 feet (40 and 90 meters) wide, large enough to cause localized devastation near the impact site. The asteroid responsible for the Tunguska event of 1908, which leveled some 500 square miles (1,287 square kilometers) of forest in remote Siberia, was probably about the same size.

So nothing to worry about

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Provided it enters in a similarly uninhabited location.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Sarcasm?

Idk about you but if it levels 1287 km² of forest, I don't think that would exactly be good news for a populated area. On the upper range, it could be equivalent to a 40 megatonne bomb.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Which direction do I need to fart to up those numbers?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Those are rookie numbers. Gotta pump those numbers up.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago

I'm team asteroid.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Unexpected Waterworld dipstick guy

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

He's my go-to for posts like these

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Underutilized meme format, honestly. It can apply to almost anything in daily life circa 2025.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

I wonder if the "important" people know the chances are higher, so they're going for broke in order to build their escape ship.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Panic?

I'm crossing my fingers for the wellbeing of the universe. We're awful.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Worry not, for we are insignificant to the universe.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Forever, humanity could only ever conceivably expand so far due to the expansion of the universe, so as far as we know a still insignificant portion of the universe we could colonize.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Until we make some scientific breakthrough which might solve that problem. If there is any possible of course. There is so much we still don't know.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

That's 0.9% more than the last time I checked. I know those are still really low odds, but we can hope...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I science podcast I follow already warned last week that the probability would go up at first as they narrow down its trajectory.
They gave the example of a fan closing, as it gets narrow, the earth represents a bigger percentage of the remaining fan. If you keep closing the fan the Earth eventually will fall outside the fan and the percentage drop to zero.

Unless it turns out that it is dead center.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

One of the things they're doing is calculating what it's orbit would have to be to hit the Earth, and where it would have had to have been on its last orbit to be in that orbit

So they can look at any astronomical images of that part of the sky from then and see if it's in the right place

If they find images of the right part of the sky at the right time and the asteroid is not in it, they know it's not on an orbit that will hit the Earth in 2032

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

don’t worry, it’ll just be like a small nuke, not a planet killer… (until they update the size estimates)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If we are able to nudge an asteroid, would an asteroid of this size nudge the earth?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Technically the solar system is a multi-body system, and everything nudges everything else, but the mass of the earth is far greater than the mass of the asteroid, to the point that it doesn't matter.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sigh. Why can't it be 109%

This place sucks.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

It's not big enough to fix anything. If it hits, it won't hit America or Europe

It's in the big nuke scale of energy, enough to do a lot of damage to a small area. Were it to hit a city, the city would need a lot of rebuilding. Were it to hit, few people would be in danger as we will have years of warning. The only people in the impact area would be "storm chasers" travelling to see the impact

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