โIt is true that the probability of impact has doubled recently, but that doesnโt mean that it will keep doing so,โ said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at the Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies at Nasaโs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California who is involved in overseeing the programmes that make these orbital calculations. โWhat matters is that the probability of impact is very small, and that it is likely to drop to zero as we keep observing 2024 YR4.โ
Two key organisations are involved in calculating these impact odds. They are the Nasa centre Farnocchia works at, and the Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre in Italy, which is part of the European Space Agency. These groups are the cartographers of near-Earth space, looking out for parts of the cosmic map where they can mark โhere be dragonsโ โ in this case, potentially hazardous asteroids or comets.
When an asteroid (or a comet) is discovered, both centres use their automated orbital dynamics software (Scout and Sentry for Nasa, and Meerkat and Aegis for the European centre) to consider the available observations of the object.
When the asteroidโs many possible future orbits are plotted out, some may result in an Earth impact. But many of these orbits will shift away from Earth, so the probability of an impact will be low. Itโs as if the asteroid has a wide spotlight thatโs beaming out ahead of it. Earth is initially caught in the beam, but so is a lot of the space around it.
Then, more observations come in. The spotlight of those possible orbits shrinks. The outliers are gone. But Earth is still in the spotlight and now takes up proportionally more space in it. โEarth now covers a larger fraction of the uncertainty, and so the probability of impact has gone up,โ Farnocchia said.
This can happen for some time as observations continue. โThatโs why the impact probability rises,โ said Juan Luis Cano, an aerospace engineer with the Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre. โLittle by little, it grows.โ And it explains whatโs been happening with 2024 YR4โs odds.
Sometimes, as has been the case for 2024 YR4, the odds can fluctuate slightly. This is because the quality of some observations can be better or worse than others, which can move the cluster of anticipated orbits around a bit. โAll this is expected,โ Farnocchia said.
Normally, additional observations significantly reduce the orbital uncertainty, and Earth falls out of that trajectory โ dropping the impact odds to zero. Humanity will have to see whether the same outcome awaits 2024 YR4.
Telescopes can observe 2024 YR4 until April, after which time it will be too distant and faint to see until another Earth flyby in 2028. By April, itโs likely that astronomers will have enough observations of the asteroid, spread across several months, to know its orbit precisely, and they will ultimately determine that no impact will occur in 2032. โPeople should not be worried at this point,โ Cano said.
Nevertheless, 2024 YR4 is being taken seriously by Nasa and ESA. โEven though the probability of impact is small, it is larger than we usually find for other asteroids,โ Farnocchia said.
If this asteroid were to hit Earth, it would unleash a destructive force similar to a nuclear bomb. And the current uncertainty over its future orbit extends to its possible impact locations, which include a mix of uninhabited, sparsely populated and densely populated areas: the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, parts of Africa, the Arabian Sea and South Asia.
2024 YR4 is unlikely to be on a collision course. But โwe donโt get to choose when the next significant asteroid impact will be,โ Farnocchia said. โWe just donโt want to take any chances, and so we will keep tracking 2024 YR4.โ
And if it does become a problem, it may be time for Earth to rally anti-asteroid defences.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Robin George Andrews
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