Today’s SMOD Forecast, Close Approach with Slight Chance of Global Destruction in Seven Years – IOTW Report

Today’s SMOD Forecast, Close Approach with Slight Chance of Global Destruction in Seven Years

Thursday, 13 February 2025, 17:00 Dr. Tar Uncategorized 19

Newsweek

NASA is tracking a bus-sized asteroid zipping past the Earth this afternoon at a zippy 18,700 miles per hour.

The space rock—dubbed “2025 CN”—is estimated to be some 28 feet across, according to NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

It will pass within (a cosmically slight) 917,000 miles of Earth before whizzing back off out across the solar system, not to return to near us again until mid-2041. More

Newsweek

The YR4 asteroid [different from the one named previously above] is currently the most dangerous space object near Earth, according to NASA, and its impact on the planet would have the same power as a nuclear bomb. While the chance of an impact is low, contingencies will need to be put in place in the event those chances rise.

What To Know

When approached for comment by Newsweek, the European Space Agency provided data indicating that the probability of Earth impact is 2.2 percent.

One solution to a potential impact, proposed by Dr. David Whitehouse, would be to use nuclear weapons to redirect the asteroid away from the planet.

The astronomer told Sky News: “I think this has the potential to be very serious indeed. So, we have to keep a close eye on this object because it could turn out to be the most dangerous thing in space.” More

19 Comments on Today’s SMOD Forecast, Close Approach with Slight Chance of Global Destruction in Seven Years

  7. I wonder if anyone has run the numbers on using nukes to move that thing? Explosives, especially nuclear bombs, have very different energy dissipation characteristics in a vacuum compared to within a gaseous atmosphere.

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  8. Say what, when I was 7 in 1960 and in 2nd grade, I knew that duck and cover was a bunch of bs. Hiding under your school desk in case we were nuked wouldn’t have saved your sorry ass. Chicken Little (the sky is falling) was as alive then as he still is now promoting doom and gloom, so what else is new.

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  11. democRATz have been running around in chicken suits for over half a century screaming “the sky is falling”!
    Sadly to say, odds are, one of these damn decades the dumb bastards are gonna be right, but only because they will have managed to hit one clay target with their propaganda shotgun in 50 some years!

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  13. In “Rendezvous with Rama”, Arthur C Clark introduced “Spaceguard”, a system that tracked asteroids and space junk. NASA has several programs keeping watch on nearby space. In some circles, Clark is credited with the idea.

    I’m almost disappointed to not find an online betting pool with odds of impact.

  14. I always thought astronauts would fly out to the asteroid and hook jet engines on it and head out into space away from earth. Unless they get the order mixed up and decide to really reduce the earths population.

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