Asteroid 2024 YR4

[clancyphile]

Make a close pass in 2028, with an over 2% chance it hits in 2032.

Like 99942 Apophos, maybe we ought to have Elon Musk do a live-fire test shot of MIT's Project Icarus on the thing. Falcon Heavy, B83 "special store"... think that could make these two go away?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecarte ... t-went-up/

https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/doc/apophis/

Modify Boeing's Spaceliner as the delivery vehicle with remote operation...

[jemhouston]

SMOD = Sweet Meteor of Death.

[gtg947h]

Modify Boeing's Spaceliner as the delivery vehicle with remote operation...

Good idea, but we actually want the payload to get there...

[Rocket J Squrriel]

Possible Tunguska size BOOM along the equator.

[Paul Nuttall]

Saw this last week,



Kourou may in in a bit of bother....also heard of suggestions of China and India looking at ways of making sure it came down on the other country rather than them.

[jemhouston]

The probability of it hitting is high enough that we should take the action. Put a lander with ion engine on it and change its course.

Then again, that would allow a course change to hit us.

[clancyphile]

The probability of it hitting is high enough that we should take the action. Put a lander with ion engine on it and change its course.

Then again, that would allow a course change to hit us.

It's why I'm more partial to a B83. In the words of Brad Little:
"Make that damn thing go away."

And since we KNOW the Boeing Starliner can at least go up... why not have that POS be useful?

[Micael]

This is something that’s been followed in certain circles for a while. It is concerning, and the risk of a catastrophic impact is high enough that we can’t afford to ignore it. One problem here, as I understand it, is that the trajectory cannot currently be modelled with any great degree of certainty. In other words the calculated chance of impact could in reality be a lot lower, but also a lot higher. Plans needs to start being made now.

[Belushi TD]

Oh dear....

I just had a terrible thought... What if the movie Armageddon (oil drillers in space) is about to actually happen? Who's got the most reliable launch system at the moment? SpaceX. Anyone think Musk could let that mission happen without being personally involved? So we could have Elon Musk as a possible hero in this scenario.

*snicker*

*goes back to cudgelling my brain into submission with home made wine*

Belushi TD

[jemhouston]

There is also the possibility that it might hit the moon. I'm not sure how much of the splatter from that impact would head towards Earth and what happens after that.

[Nathan45]

I have my response ready to go.

https://youtu.be/m6grVB1xT1I?si=oVTTcIZIcOJgB7S8

[kdahm]

Starliner doesn't have the delta-v to do anything to the asteroid. It would take something a bit more powerful to handle it.

The asteroid parameters are now a bit more refined. Orbital period is 3.99 years, with a high eccentricity. Diameter is between 40m and 90 m. If the diameter is around 50-55m, then the mass may be on the range of 2.2e8 kg. Most troubling for any sort of a shove, the rotation is about 19.4 minutes.

Current telescopes will lose track of it sometime in May. They'll pick it up again in late 2028. By that time, it will be too late to launch something for a shove to adjust it's orbit, but there's still time for an impactor or a surface device to make a big kaboom. As soon as we see it in 2028, we'll have a much better handle on whether it will hit in 2032.

If we do decide to move it, then my vote would be for a starship to put something like a Merlin vacuum engine with a big tank on an intercept trajectory. Due to the target rotation, it probably won't be doable to soft-land a starship itself nose first, then use the engines to nudge it away. Besides, Starship is 121m long, bigger than the rock.

We also can't go for the Blofeld You Only Live Twice method, even if it would be entertaining to see Musk try.

[Rocket J Squrriel]

Could we get something up that would orbit or land on it with a radio beacon? That way the orbit could be more accurately be tracked?

[clancyphile]

Starliner doesn't have the delta-v to do anything to the asteroid. It would take something a bit more powerful to handle it.

I was thinking use Starliner to get the B83 close enough to the asteroid to make it go away. No crew needed. Just insert the special store, and activate the physics package remotely.

[Poohbah]

Starliner doesn't have the delta-v to do anything to the asteroid. It would take something a bit more powerful to handle it.

I was thinking use Starliner to get the B83 close enough to the asteroid to make it go away. No crew needed. Just insert the special store, and activate the physics package remotely.

Probably won't work. 1 B83 will deliver roughly 150KT of energy to the asteroid if detonated on the surface. (The asteroid occupies 1/8th of the volume of a 50-meter radius fireball; 1.2MT yield divided by 8 gives 150KT.) This is enough to theoretically vaporize about 25% of the asteroid. The actual amount vaporized will be considerably lower. Now, this may be useful: the vaporized rock will exert thrust against the non-vaporized portion of the asteroid and deflect its path, assuming that it remains largely unitary. The problem is that vaporized rock has a piss-poor specific impulse.

[Belushi TD]

Starliner doesn't have the delta-v to do anything to the asteroid. It would take something a bit more powerful to handle it.

I was thinking use Starliner to get the B83 close enough to the asteroid to make it go away. No crew needed. Just insert the special store, and activate the physics package remotely.

Probably won't work. 1 B83 will deliver roughly 150KT of energy to the asteroid if detonated on the surface. (The asteroid occupies 1/8th of the volume of a 50-meter radius fireball; 1.2MT yield divided by 8 gives 150KT.) This is enough to theoretically vaporize about 25% of the asteroid. The actual amount vaporized will be considerably lower. Now, this may be useful: the vaporized rock will exert thrust against the non-vaporized portion of the asteroid and deflect its path, assuming that it remains largely unitary. The problem is that vaporized rock has a piss-poor specific impulse.

Ehhhh... If you do it soon enough, even a small amount of delta-V will move it enough to not hit the Earth.

Hitting the moon was also a possibility... Has anyone figured out where on the moon it might hit?

Finally - Is it a rocky asteroid or a metal one? If its mostly metal, can we figure out how to capture it in either earth or moon orbit? Wouldn't be a bad thing to have a large supply of metal in the local space to be used to make stuff, so we don't have to launch everything from the bottom of the gravity well.

Belushi TD

[jemhouston]

Playing Devi's advocate, could you actually direct a nuke to change course enough to miss Earth or would almost any course change, do it? I'm figuring you would want it to pass behind Earth rather than going in front of us.

[Paul Nuttall]

New calculations by University of Arizona astronomer David Rankin have reportedly found that there is a slim chance of about 0.3 per cent of the 90-metre-wide asteroid crashing onto the Moon.

[clancyphile]

Starliner doesn't have the delta-v to do anything to the asteroid. It would take something a bit more powerful to handle it.

I was thinking use Starliner to get the B83 close enough to the asteroid to make it go away. No crew needed. Just insert the special store, and activate the physics package remotely.

Probably won't work. 1 B83 will deliver roughly 150KT of energy to the asteroid if detonated on the surface. (The asteroid occupies 1/8th of the volume of a 50-meter radius fireball; 1.2MT yield divided by 8 gives 150KT.) This is enough to theoretically vaporize about 25% of the asteroid. The actual amount vaporized will be considerably lower. Now, this may be useful: the vaporized rock will exert thrust against the non-vaporized portion of the asteroid and deflect its path, assuming that it remains largely unitary. The problem is that vaporized rock has a piss-poor specific impulse.

OK... what about a B53 or W53? Nine megatons.

[Rocket J Squrriel]

New calculations by University of Arizona astronomer David Rankin have reportedly found that there is a slim chance of about 0.3 per cent of the 90-metre-wide asteroid crashing onto the Moon.

If it happened on the near side it could be spectacular sight! This is one to hope for.