Newfound Asteroid May Strike Earth in 2046, NASA Says

Even 1:1000 is pretty high odds in general. But that link is quite cool.

Also 4.23 Mt isnt a huge impact. Definitely not dinosaur killer right?

It would be awesomer if they had nukes.

Not all asteroids are alike. Some are ice, some are soft (like the one dart mission hit) and yet others are solid metallic hunks.

Hopefully we will be able to find a roughneck crew of drillers who will be able to fly to the asteroid and plant a nuke.

Perhaps a non-obvious approach? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_tractor

> A gravity tractor is a theoretical spacecraft that would deflect another object in space, typically a potentially hazardous asteroid that might impact Earth, without physically contacting it, using only its gravitational field to transmit the required impulse.[1][2] The gravitational force of a nearby space vehicle, though small, is able to alter the path of a much larger asteroid if the vehicle spends enough time close to it; all that is required is that the vehicle thrust in a consistent direction relative to the asteroid's path, and that neither the vehicle nor its expelled reaction mass come in direct contact with the asteroid.

"2023 DW" is a provisional minor-planet designation [0]. The "D" indicates that it was discovered in the second half of February (Feb. 16-28), and the "W" indicates that it was the 22nd minor planet discovered in that time frame.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_designation_in_ast...

It's indeed somehow different, not sure exactly how it works though:

> Between 2023 BG5 discovered on January 26 and 2023DQ a "PHA" (potentially hazardous asteroid) discovered on February 23 [...]

> Then, on the 26th we discovered 2023 DV and 2023DW, and on the 27th, 3 new asteroids, 2023DX, 2023DN1 and 2023 DT1.

From https://www.spaceobs.com/en/Alain-Maury-s-Blog/2023-DW

This object is rated as a 1 on the Torino scale, which combines probability of impact with size to get an overall danger level.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torino_scale

The last time an asteroid reached a 1 on the Torino scale was late January. That asteroid is 2023 AJ1. It was downgraded to 0 on the scale in early February, after further observations decreased the estimated chance it will hit the earth.

Overall, objects reach a 1 on the Torino scale 3-4 times a year. No objects have reached level 2 or above since 2006.

With space things we typically deal with astronomical odds, so I'd say 1:600 is a solid "may" and on the internet looks like 'probably not' to most readers.

To "Newfound Asteroid Unlikely to Strike Earth in 2046"?

Uncertainty in the measurement of its position and velocity.

Yes, but only with sufficient observation. Since this body was recently discovered, there likely hasn't been enough observation time to know the direction and velocity of the object with great certainty. The more we observe it, the better we'll know where it'll be in 20 years.

The speed and direction of objects moving through space is deterministic, but it is neither constant (obviously) nor completely predictable except in very special cases. In general the motion of systems of three or more bodies are chaotic, i.e. very small changes in initial conditions can result in very large changes in position and velocity in the future. Also, we can't measure positions and velocities with infinite precision. This has nothing to do with quantum mechanics, it's just that the data that comes out of our instruments has finite precision and so there will always be measurement errors. Finally, earth is a very small target, so figuring out whether something will hit it requires a lot of precision.

Also, quoting from the original article: "Often when new objects are first discovered, it takes several weeks of data to reduce the uncertainties and adequately predict their orbits years into the future."

1. Uncertainty in the speed, direction, position.

2. Uncertainty in the model (e.g. influence of external bodies besides the sun and earth).

Kinematic motion models are exact but our knowledge of all the variables involved is not.

From a purely technical perspective: maybe. We'd need to know how similar the object's orbit is relative to Earth's. If the orbit is roughly coplanar and concentric with Earth, it will cost less change in velocity (delta-V) to reduce the differences and bring it into a stable orbit. The more different it is (e.g. if it swings all the up to Jupiter and back), the more it will cost.

Once you know how much dV is required to capture, we'd next need to put that much dV at the object, which would be even more costly to launch.

Lastly, depending on the object's composition it may not be possible to even apply much dV to it. If it's a essentially a coalesced pile of rubble, any force applied will just break it into pieces. If it's roughly solid, then maybe.

Fun fact: Earth has had more than one "moon" in the past, they just tend to not last long before they're kicked out of orbit. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_RH120

Funny, this feels like the plot from Don’t look up.

On the less humorous side it would probably be pretty hard to impart enough delta-v to capture it.

There's probably better candidates.

For any two objects in orbits around a common body (like the sun) to match their orbits, they need to have their locations match and their velocity, at the same time. To collide, you only need your location to match.

One way to do this is to get to a matching location and then do a hard change of velocity so that the asteroid is now in a stable orbit. But that's a lot of energy for a rock with a mess measured using scientific notation.

There are better candidates out there where we could make a tiny change to their orbit and have them be captured naturally due to relative velocities being much closer to matching. Still a lot of energy, but a lot less.

Sadly you'll need to find a cure his frontotemporal dementia first.