In the movie Don’t look up (2021), a group of astrophysicists detects an asteroid in the course of collision to the earth and society ignores them widely. In recent weeks, the activation of the planetary defense protocol in the absence of an object baptized as 2024 YR4 It has had the opposite effect: almost everyone has overreacted.
“This is not Don’s Look Up neither Armageddon”, He says José María MadiedoResearcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC). “The fact that the probability of impact has risen 1.2 to 2.3 % Nothing changes: what has happened is that there have been new observations that have allowed refine their orbit, but there is still a lot of uncertainty. ”
“We have observed just over a month of a four -year orbital period,” he adds René DuffardIAA asteroid expert. “It’s like trying to determine a return to an athletic track after having traveled three steps, you have to wait to have more data.”
Until it reached a 10% probability, it would not begin to be worrying, but it would be very strange to happen
José María Madiedo
– Researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC)
Asteroid 2024 YR4 was discovered by the surveillance program ATLAS From Chile on December 27, two days after 828,800 km from our planet, the minimum distance in this approach. The news jumped to the media at the end of January after knowing that the two Global Groups to UN asteroids, the International asteroid alert network (IawN) and him Space Missions Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG), they first activated their monitoring protocols.
These protocols are designed to activate if there is an impact probability greater than 1% with a body of more than 50 meters. According to the first estimates, this object is between 40 and 90 meters and the probability that on December 22, 2032 impact against the Earth is 2.3 %.
“It is soon to consider a palliative method as we tested with the Dart mission,” he says Josep María Trigoasteroid specialist at the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC/IEEC). “The probability may rise within a few days, even that it reaches 5%, but that means nothing.”
Want to create alarm
Astrophysics are calm because they know the high levels of uncertainty: an object of about 50 meters that has an impact fork by 2032 of 320,000 kilometers is not enough to put the scare in their body, just to be vigilant. And even in the event that it collided with the Earth, it would not be a destruction event like the one that ended the dinosaurs, but something similar to What happened in Tunguska In 1908, with high chances of falling into the ocean or some desert, because the planet is mostly uninhabited.
Talking about where it will fall, with the data we have, is science fiction and desire to create alarmism
Josep Maria Trigo
– Asteroid specialist at the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC/IEEC)
But what inspires them most confidence is the experience we already had in 2004 with Apofisan asteroid of 400 meters in diameter whose probabilities of collision with the Earth in the year 2029 were estimated at 2.7% and then remained at all. “In this case, until it reached a 10% level, it would not begin to be worrying, but it would be strange to happen,” says Madiedo.
“As then, when we have more observations and observe a new arch of the orbit – whether in the coming months or in its first return in 2028 – and this probability will decrease,” says Trigo. “Let’s be serious. Propagar an orbit that has just been discovered seven years in time is a lot to say, and talk about where it will fall, with the data we have, it is science fiction and desire to create alarmism. ”
The morning of December 22
Simulation tools allow you to know some details of what the 2024 YR4 asteroid will do in your next turn. When he returns to the vicinity of the Earth, in December 2028, it will go much further than what happened a month ago. At Christmas of 2032 the estimate at this time is that it passes in an arc with an uncertainty fork between 0 and 330,000 km, a little less from the distance that separates us from the moon.
“It will be December 22, at 8 in the morning Spanish time,” explains wheat while driving one of these simulators. “It will be seen in the morning sky, with large telescopes, because it is a very weak object, although at its maximum proximity to the earth it will be for a few hours within reach of amateur telescopes, with a magnitude similar to that of the dwarf planet Pluto. It will rise from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere and follow a trajectory quite similar to that of 2028 ”.
All this, without taking into account all the things that can happen to the asteroid along the way and that right now we cannot know: from the gravitational interactions with large planets, such as Jupiter or the land itself, for the non -gravitational effects, such as the thrust Radiative of sunlight on one of its faces. A small deviation, in such a wide orbit, can make a big difference.
A “terrible alarmism”
So when can we breathe calm and stop Look up? “Right now the object is moving away and becomes less brilliant, so the determinations of the position have more and more error,” explains Duffard. “By experience with other examples, one has to have a quite wide piece of orbit, at least a room of orbit.” According to the expert, the big telescopes can follow him until April and perhaps by then we can discard the danger, but we may have to wait for 2028.
From the great Canary Islands telescope (GTC), for example, Julia de León It has been able to determine that the object is a rock formed by silicates and some metal. “Knowing the composition, we can infer the Albedo (the amount of light that reflects its surface), and with the Albedo measure we estimate its size,” he explains in a note from the Astrophysical Institute of the Canary Islands (IAC), which continues to monitor this object.
A terrible alarmism is being generated, but I am sure that next week the news disappears
René Duffard
– IAA asteroid expert
“The protocol is being followed by Rajatabla, and the scientific community in most are the opinion that this probability will go down as in previous cases and in the end everything will be nothing,” says Madiedo. “In general we should try to lower the revolutions, transmit that it is too early to be alarmed and that it is good that the planetary defense protocols are activated, which have been created precisely for these cases,” says Duffard.
“A terrible alarmism is being generated, but I am sure that next week the news disappears,” concludes the expert. “And perhaps we are considering it badly and we should convey that there is a 98% chance that the object does not clash against the earth, which could soon be 100%.”
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