An asteroid big enough to destroy a city is now much less likely to collide with Earth in 2032, according to the latest NASA data.
In recent weeks, NASA had been steadily increasing the likelihood of a strike from asteroid 2024 YR4, with the odds peaking on Tuesday (Feb. 18) at 1 in 32, or a 3.1% chance. However, on Wednesday (Feb. 19), the space agency more than halved the chances to 1.5%.
The odds are likely to change again as astronomers learn more about YR4's trajectory, but they expect the likelihood to end up at 0% once the space rock's trajectory is confirmed.
YR4 has an estimated diameter of around 180 feet (55 meters) — that estimate has been fluctuating a bit, but the asteroid is about as wide as the leaning tower of Pisa is tall. YR4 has the potential to release around 8 megatons of energy in the event of a strike — upwards of 500 times more energy than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in Japan. This means it's big enough to wipe out a major city but too small to end human civilization.
Click on the link for the full article
Re: The Outer Space Thread
Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2025 5:20 pm
by SWIM
A bit of good news! One less think to worry about; for now.
Researchers analyzing pulverized rock onboard NASA’s Curiosity rover have found the largest organic compounds on the Red Planet to date. The finding, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests prebiotic chemistry may have advanced further on Mars than previously observed.
Scientists probed an existing rock sample inside Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) mini-lab and found the molecules decane, undecane, and dodecane. These compounds, which are made up of 10, 11, and 12 carbons, respectively, are thought to be the fragments of fatty acids that were preserved in the sample. Fatty acids are among the organic molecules that on Earth are chemical building blocks of life.
Living things produce fatty acids to help form cell membranes and perform various other functions. But fatty acids also can be made without life, through chemical reactions triggered by various geological processes, including the interaction of water with minerals in hydrothermal vents.
While there’s no way to confirm the source of the molecules identified, finding them at all is exciting for Curiosity’s science team for a couple of reasons.
Curiosity scientists had previously discovered small, simple organic molecules on Mars, but finding these larger compounds provides the first evidence that organic chemistry advanced toward the kind of complexity required for an origin of life on Mars.
Astronomers have warned of solar storms and other extreme space weather over the coming days and weeks, as an active part of the Sun rotates into view.
The activity is expected to cause auroras and potential blackouts on Earth, with Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recently capturing the most powerful eruption of 2025 from a newly emerged sunspot region.
Classed as an X2.7 flare – the highest category possible for a solar flare – the event triggered radio blackouts across parts of the Middle East.
High frequency radio signals were disrupted for around 10 minutes, according to space weather forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US.
Nasa noted that ongoing flares and solar eruptions from this region could continue to impact “radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts”.