Komputer JaduL- The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA has released the latest information about the "city killer" asteroid that could hit Earth in eight years. On Wednesday (2/19/2025), the space agency predicted that there was a 1 in 32, or 3.1 percent, chance that asteroid 2024 YR4 would hit Earth on December 22, 2032.
Now, NASA has reduced the risk to only a 1 in 67 (1.5 percent) chance that the "city killer" will hit Earth, quoted from LBC. They announced the news on the social media site X, explaining the prediction was due to better observations of the asteroid.
It is estimated that the asteroid is 90m (300ft) wide - about the size of Big Ben. David Rankin, a scientist at NASA's Catalina Sky Survey Project, has projected a "risk corridor" for the asteroid that shows the large part of the Earth that could be hit.
The “risk corridor” stretches from South America, across the Pacific Ocean, across South Asia, the Arabian Sea and Africa. Specific countries that could face impacts include Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan and Nigeria.
Where the object lands depends on the rotation of the Earth at the time of impact. Meanwhile, an international team is using the James Webb Space Telescope to determine how much damage it could cause. The Tunguska asteroid, which struck Siberia in 1908, was also similar in size and destroyed 830 square miles of forest.
our size for 2024 YR4: the hazard posed by a 40m asteroid is very different from that of a 90m asteroid", ESA added. The James Webb Space Telescope will solve this problem, as it uses infrared sensors to observe the heat radiating from asteroids - giving them a more accurate estimate of their size.
Space Objects
A half-ton piece of space junk fell into a village in Makueni district southeast of Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, on Monday afternoon, December 30, 2024. The Kenya Space Agency identified the falling metal as a breakaway ring from a launch rocket.
The object resembled a glowing metal ring more than eight feet in diameter and weighing more than 1,100 pounds (500 kg). The object fell from the sky and landed in a remote Kenyan village this week. The incident caused no injuries but frightened residents who feared a bomb or worse.
The object was debris left over from space exploration and satellite launches over the past 60 years, the Kenyan Space Agency said Wednesday.
The agency identified the object as a spacer ring from a launch vehicle and is investigating its origin and ownership. “Such objects are usually designed to burn up upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere or fall in uninhabited areas, such as the ocean”, the agency said.
The agency described the incident as “an isolated case". For villagers in Makueni, the space junk landing came as quite a shock. “I was tending to my cows and I heard a loud noise”, Joseph Mutua, a local resident, told Kenya’s NTV television station.
“I looked around; I couldn’t see any smoke in the cloud. I went to the side of the road to check if there was a car accident, but there was no collision”, he said.
Mutua and his neighbors looked up and saw a large, circular object slowly falling from the sky. “It looked like a giant steering wheel and it was glowing red as it fell”, residents said.
The object then cooled to a grayish gray after landing in the bush, flattening trees and bushes, according to television news footage. “If it had hit a homestead, it would have been a disaster”, Mutua said. “We don’t know if it was a bomb or something and it landed here”, he added.
Although the Kenya Space Agency has not given assurances that the ring poses no threat, residents in Mukuku are still angry about the incident. “We want the owner of this land to be compensated”, said Paul Musili, another resident.
“We haven’t slept since it fell. Everyone is wondering what happened”, he said. Major Aloyce Were of the Kenya Space Agency said authorities were still assessing the extent of the damage to the area, its people and their livestock.
A few hours after the object landed, Maj. Gen. Were and his team went to the scene and met with traumatized residents.
“Space is not as safe as we once thought it was”, he said. Last year, the European Space Agency estimated there were more than 14,000 tons of material in low-Earth orbit.
About a third of that is debris, according to Sara Webb, an astrophysicist at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, and her colleagues.
With about 110 new launches each year and at least 10 satellites or other objects breaking into smaller pieces each year, that number is only going to increase, the space agency said.
More and more of these objects are now falling back to Earth, without breaking up during re-entry as expected.
In March, a 1.6-pound piece of debris from the International Space Station punched a hole in the roof of a Florida home, and the following month, several sizable metal fragments from a SpaceX capsule were found on a Canadian farm.
A similar piece of metal, estimated to weigh about 100 pounds, was found in May at a campsite in North Carolina.
“We’ve reached this point in space exploration and use where this isn’t just once in a blue moon,” Dr. Webb said. “Now it’s almost every month or two.” While the debris that fell on Kenya was enormous, there are at least 40,500 objects larger than 4 inches still in orbit, and millions of smaller fragments.
These fragments can cause major damage if they collide with larger objects, such as satellites, which in turn creates more debris that can hit more objects, creating what’s known as the Kessler Syndrome, Dr. Webb said.
“Holding companies or countries accountable for the Kenyan fallout has proven difficult”, Dr. Webb said. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission issued its first fine for space debris in 2023 -$150,000 to Dish, a television provider.
“While there are international guidelines for reducing space debris, those measures, which date back to the early 2000s, have not kept up with the pace of launches,” said Stijn Lemmens, a senior space debris mitigation analyst at the European Space Agency.
“Our concern is that because the implementation of countermeasures is slow now, the problem will grow faster”, Lemmens said.
“One solution is to ensure that rockets, satellites and other space vehicles are designed with shorter lifetimes and the ability to safely de-orbit,” Lemmens said. Older rockets are being monitored to prepare for re-entry, he added. Reducing space debris also requires a “change in mentality”, Lemmens said.
Humans need to think of space as a finite resource, and not “a place where we can just throw our trash”.
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