> "There is still a 96.2% chance that the asteroid will miss the moon," NASA said in a statement on Thursday.

All is well!

> It is now believed to be 53 to 67 meters, roughly the height of a 15-story building.

Good thing we have so much confidence in our leadership and intergovernmental cooperative relationships!

A 15 story building... is the most odd relative measurement to use - wtf?

I used to live in a 14 story building, so I have a pretty good approximation of the size.

I find it useful, I could immediately picture a several buildings about that height I know.

It’s about 1/4 furlong

How many SG1 Furlings is that?

It's about 1 olympic sized swimming pool long, although I guess we're only allowed to use that for volume

About 200 hundred ducks stacked on top of each other.

No weirder than measuring things by feet.

You'd be happy to know we measure the size of horses in hands

African or European?

150 foot longs

Is that a pre or post lawsuit foot long?

(Subway was sued that the "foot longs" were only 11-11.5 inches in length: https://www.startribune.com/subway-to-ensure-footlongs-measu...)

$750 before tax

Can you suggest something better? I’ve seen a 15 story building, so I’ve got some idea of scale.

Around 14 million SEGA Dreamcasts

~53-67 Metres?

You know what, 15 story building is more intuitive.

For a couple of meters it works, I can imagine a 3 meter wide asteroid just fine.

But at 50 meters it becomes a distance unit for me and I can’t easily imagine an object with a 50m dimension. I’ve seen actual 15 story buildings though.

In all seriousness, I don’t believe a collision with the moon is something we need to be concerned about.

Concerned about in a "this is going to kill us" sort of way, of course not.

Concerned about in a "it would suck to miss this scientific opportunity" sort of way though... We've gone to great expense to crash things into asteroids much farther away from earth so we can study the impacts... I have to imagine there are many scientists who would love to see a collision between the moon and a large asteroid through the right instruments.

Someone didn't read Neal Stephenson's book.

Unless what hits it is a miniature black hole or is made of solid metal, the moon should be fine. It gets hit by much bigger thing is on the regular - geologically speaking.

Seveneves was a fun book!

This is my regular reminder to stop reading 2/3 of the way through the book. It will feel like a traditional, abrupt Stephenson ending, but you will save yourself hours of time and potentially blindness-inducing eye-rolling.

I don't know why everyone seems to hate the last 1/3 so much. I find it a very interesting, fresh take on things. I enjoy it every time.

The last third should have been a short epilogue or a full sequel. It's too much of a pivot in terms of tone and focus, and feels incongruous and mismatched with the first two sections (which are excellent). He clearly had a bunch of ideas that didn't fit into the main body of the work and grafted them on anyway; it wasn't bad, it just didn't fit.

The comparison would be Orson Scott Card writing Ender's Game to set up the universe of Speaker for the Dead, but instead making Speaker for the Dead a third of its size and calling it the last few chapters of Ender's Game. They should just be different works in the same setting.

For me I skipped the 4th third. Like I always do.

For me, it was the middle third I skipped. Seemed to drag forever.

You know it’s a great book when everyone seems to dislike it in a different way!

Same, I enjoyed that book beginning to end.

But you had to read past 2/3 to find out how the book got its title. The bit in the beginning about the moon breaking into 7 pieces was just a bit of subterfuge.

Man I have exactly the opposite reaction: the last third at least has some nifty high-concept worldbuilding even though it doesn't have nearly enough room to get really explored. The first two-thirds are an absolutely cringe-worthy example of "if only the idiot normies would shut up and let the engineers run everything" nerd supremacy at its very worst, including a painfully obvious Elon Musk stand-in character saving humanity, which was a bad idea in 2015 and has aged even more horribly since.

Huh, interesting. I never re-read it, but noped out of Termination Shock for the same reason.

Likewise. I thought the last third was kind of fun science fiction. The first two thirds were a huge downer.

Seveneves was mild, diluted nerd supremacy. Anathem, was absolute, unhinged nerd supremacy.

I loved them both.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the Ita's version of the internet and the garbage data they have to contend with.

Many asteroids are made of solid metal.

But the moon has handled much bigger collisions without a single fatality!

It wouldn't even make a top-100 craters-of-the-moon-by-size crater if it hit.

Which one specifically?

Mentioned in other comments, but to be explicit since the title is odd: "Seveneves"

>"There is still a 96.2% chance that the asteroid will miss the moon," NASA said in a statement on Thursday.

Isn't this completely divorced from the article title? Shouldn't it be "could hit moon"?

No, because the odds used to be 97%, therefore the odds of it hitting are raising.

It would be pretty cool if it hits the moon. Hopefully in about five years we will know pretty accurately if that's still the case, in which case I think I will use this as an excuse to finally buy a telescope. Maybe even record it!

Doesn’t that create risk of some crap from the moon going in the direction of the earth?

... And wrecking our satellites?

How many satellites have to be destroyed to create chain reaction of debris destroying other satellites/polluting orbit with enough debris so its permanent danger zone for satellites and rockets passing through?

It is unlikely that the amount of debris would reach Kessler Syndrome-levels of orbital pollution, which is what you are describing.

It's a 60 meter big rock.

Any debris it can dislodge from the moon will be substantially smaller.

And even if it was bigger, and it dislodged bigger rocks, these rocks would basically stay in the same orbit around the Earth as the moon is. The extreme amount of dV it would take to escape the moon’s existing orbit in the right direction so as to fall anywhere near the Earth makes this scenario improbable. I believe (don’t quote me) that we are talking on the order of 10km/s.

Is this true though? It could dislodge larger rocks with smaller velocity, right?

Given the known size of the asteroid and assuming a direct impact how big of a crater would be created?(give an existing crater as an example for extra points) And would any ejecta make it to Earth?

> It is now believed to be 53 to 67 meters, roughly the height of a 15-story building.

> This is significant because it is bigger than the 50-meter threshold for activating planetary defense plans.

> If the asteroid still had a more than 1% chance of hitting Earth, "the development of one or more deflection missions would already be starting now", Moissl said.

Well, I hope they are right, because it appears we’re going to miss the opportunity to do anything about it if they are wrong.

We should redirect it into the moon if it doesn't. For Science™.

If you're curious about what might happen here if the explosion was REALLY big -- Seveneves by Neal Stephenson is a fun speculative fiction read.

(But this is almost certainly too small)

“Fun”

Mistakenly started this during Covid and decidedly the wrong vibe for that time period.

Very fair

Protecting Earth from asteroids is part of the job we hired the Moon to do. I mean, have you seen the back side of that thing?

Kidding aside, an argument can be made that life on Earth would never have had time to evolve if not for the Moon's protective effect against cataclysmic impacts.

By then, China and hopefully US shall have observation satellites revolving moon and a scientific base. If it happens, we will be getting tonnes of data otherwise nearly impossible to get.

If it does, what are the odds we would be able to see it?

For starters, I would imagine it is at least 50% likely to hit the far side of the Moon, which we ~never see. Perhaps worse, because for it to hit the near side, it has to fly past the Earth somewhat, diminishing the odds.

But then, it also needs to be on the lit side. On the expected date of impact, 22nd Dec 2032, it will be 2 days after new moon, so not much lit area to aim for.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯