this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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Bring it
A direct hit would be about the size of a fission nuclear bomb. Devastating for a city, but no regional or country-wide impacts, let alone globally
Not even a little global cooling?
As a treat?
If anything, it might get a tiny bit warmer
How long before impact would we learn where the hit is going to be? A real lotto scenario, but my money is on the ocean. What happens if it hits the ocean?
Here's the possible impact sites. Ocean is a pretty good chance, and that would mean even less impact. If it's close to shore, then there's a chance for waves, but that's about it. Locations are based on the timing of when the asteroid will arrive in 2032, not the shape of the orbit which we have fairly good accuracy on (that's why the "beam" of possibilities is so narrow)
Currently, we're unable to directly observe the asteroid due to the distance, but we do have a good idea on what its orbit looks like, so any updates on the odds is coming from past, unintentional observations on the asteroid (we took a photo of something else in the sky, but know that the asteroid should be in that photo).
When the asteroid passes by again in 4 years is when we'll likely get the most info on location/impact before the potential impact in 2032.
All this info comes from this Scott Manley video. He's an excellent space science educator (and KSP player)
Wow what a great response, thank you so much! I had no idea we had such a Small beam. I guess the downside of that is the rest of the world won't be as concerned with figuring out how to stop it as they would if it were more random.