The near-Earth space rock, dubbed 2024 YR4, was previously thought to have a small chance of impacting Earth.<\/p>\n
Later observations of the 65-metre-long rock revealed that the odds of its collision with Earth are almost negligible, while it still had small chances of impacting the moon.<\/p>\n
Estimates of the asteroid\u2019s trajectory suggest it has a four per cent chance of hitting the lunar surface in December 2032, with the possible moon-impact predicted to produce a crater about 1km in diameter.<\/p>\n
Researchers previously calculated that 2024 YR4 may generate a lunar debris cloud weighing over 100,000,000kg, which could \u201caccrete to the Earth on timescales of a few days\u201d and expose satellites orbiting the Earth to meteorites for years.<\/p>\n
To avoid this likelihood, astronomers, including those from Nasa, propose blowing up 2024 YR4 altogether as part of what they call a \u201ckinetic disruption mission\u201d.<\/p>\n
The yet-to-be peer-reviewed study assessed three potential missions, including further reconnaissance of the asteroid, deflecting the space rock, and breaking it apart into pieces with explosive devices.<\/p>\n
\nDeflection missions were assessed and appear impractical<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Researchers considered different propulsion options using existing spacecraft as well as new ones.<\/p>\n
They also assessed the different timelines involved for each of these missions to reach the asteroid, currently over 379 million miles away.<\/p>\n
All these options seem to require several times more planning and resources compared to Nasa\u2019s 2022 Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), in which the space agency nudged an asteroid called Dimorphos off course by ramming it with a spacecraft at high speed.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeflection missions were assessed and appear impractical,\u201d scientists wrote.<\/p>\n
Another proposed option includes detonating 2024 YR4 using \u201cnuclear explosive devices\u201d. This option is being considered seriously since deflection will likely not be enough due to uncertainty in the asteroid\u2019s size and mass.<\/p>\n
Such a mission could open up another way of deflecting any other potentially dangerous space rocks discovered to be on a collision course with Earth in the future, scientists say. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The near-Earth space rock, dubbed 2024 YR4, was previously thought to have a small chance of impacting Earth.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,1024,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-82460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-nasa","12":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}