Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) πŸš€πŸ›°οΈ
Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) πŸš€πŸ›°οΈ  Β·  3 months ago

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"Chance of 'city-killer' asteroid 2024 YR4 smashing into Earth rises yet again to 3.1%, #NASA reports" by @LiveScience - As astronomers' observations have narrowed the estimate of #asteroid#2024YR4's orbit, Earth's size is now a larger fraction of the reduced cross-section of possible paths. So probability goes up until impact is ruled out. 96.9% chance the eventually-narrowed path will eliminate impact with Earth. Computation continues. https://www.livescience.com/space/asteroids/chance-of-city-killer-asteroid-2024-yr4-smashing-into-earth-rises-yet-again-to-3-1-percent-nasa-reports #astronomy#LowFlyingRocks
Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) πŸš€πŸ›°οΈ
Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) πŸš€πŸ›°οΈ  Β·  3 months ago

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"NASA massively lowers impact risk of 'city-killer' asteroid 2024 YR4 to 1 in 360" by @Spacecom / @RobertLea - #Asteroid#2024YR4 dropped from 3 to 1 on the Torino Scale of impact hazards. Telescope observations have narrowed down its orbit estimate, and chances of impact in 2032. As of Tuesday it was listed as 3.1%. It dropped to 0.28% as of Thursday when the article was written. (Minor update to 0.36% today.) It's expected to drop to zero. https://www.space.com/asteroid-2024yt4-impact-risk-drop-nasa #astronomy#LowFlyingRocks
Galaxy Map
Galaxy Map  Β·  3 months ago

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My followers may have heard of the neutral hydrogen map of the Milky Way published by Jan Oort, Frank Kerr and Gart Westerhout in 1958.

The Oude Sterrewacht, once directed by Oort, is now part of the Leiden botanical garden, the Hortus Botanicus. It is currently hosting an interesting art and science exhibit, Planten en Planeten (Plants and Planets).

Some of my maps are part of that exhibit, comparing Oort's original map with the new Gaia maps.

And so inspiring this new image.

#astronomy

Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) πŸš€πŸ›°οΈ
Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) πŸš€πŸ›°οΈ  Β·  3 months ago

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"Don’t panic, but an asteroid has a 1.9% chance of hitting Earth in 2032" by @arstechnica - The reason not to panic is astronomers are narrowing down a potentially threatening near-Earth #asteroid orbit with accumulating observations. The Earth occupies some small percent of the potential paths while the orbit remains uncertain. Historically, so far narrowing such orbits has eliminated Earth from the path. No guarantees. Monitor news. https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/thanks-to-nasa-you-probably-wont-have-to-worry-about-this-asteroid-killing-you/#2024YR4 #astronomy#LowFlyingRocks
Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) πŸš€πŸ›°οΈ
Astro Hawk (Ian Kluft) πŸš€πŸ›°οΈ  Β·  3 months ago

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"Incoming Asteroid" by XKCD comic (mirror bots @xkcd @xkcdbot ) - The smaller the asteroid/meteoroid, the more common it is. There are literally tons of incoming small meteors every day. The bigger they get, fortunately the less common. https://xkcd.com/3049/ #asteroid #astronomy#LowFlyingRocks#2024YR4
XKCD Comic #3049 "Incoming Asteroid" https://xkcd.com/3049/ explanation from ExplainXKCD https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3049:_Incoming_Asteroid This comic may be inspired by the recent discovery of asteroid 2024 YR4, which is estimated to have about a 2% chance of striking earth in 2032. Its size is estimated to be 40-90 meters (bad news for the area around the city). This comic provides a log scale correlating the size of any incoming asteroid to whether its arrival is good or bad news. While asteroids on the smaller end of the scale are good news for sky watchers, as the upcoming objects get bigger the potential for catastrophe grows. Many astronomy enthusiasts would be happy to see bigger meteors, as bigger generally means more exciting pictures. Of course, once the meteors grow past a certain size even the most enthusiast astronomer might grow concerned about their imminent extinction... The joke in the last line is that once an asteroid grows past a certain size, it is less of a question of the object hitting earth and more a question of earth hitting a bigger planet. Ouch.
XKCD Comic #3049 "Incoming Asteroid" https://xkcd.com/3049/ explanation from ExplainXKCD https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3049:_Incoming_Asteroid This comic may be inspired by the recent discovery of asteroid 2024 YR4, which is estimated to have about a 2% chance of striking earth in 2032. Its size is estimated to be 40-90 meters (bad news for the area around the city). This comic provides a log scale correlating the size of any incoming asteroid to whether its arrival is good or bad news. While asteroids on the smaller end of the scale are good news for sky watchers, as the upcoming objects get bigger the potential for catastrophe grows. Many astronomy enthusiasts would be happy to see bigger meteors, as bigger generally means more exciting pictures. Of course, once the meteors grow past a certain size even the most enthusiast astronomer might grow concerned about their imminent extinction... The joke in the last line is that once an asteroid grows past a certain size, it is less of a question of the object hitting earth and more a question of earth hitting a bigger planet. Ouch.
XKCD Comic #3049 "Incoming Asteroid" https://xkcd.com/3049/ explanation from ExplainXKCD https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3049:_Incoming_Asteroid This comic may be inspired by the recent discovery of asteroid 2024 YR4, which is estimated to have about a 2% chance of striking earth in 2032. Its size is estimated to be 40-90 meters (bad news for the area around the city). This comic provides a log scale correlating the size of any incoming asteroid to whether its arrival is good or bad news. While asteroids on the smaller end of the scale are good news for sky watchers, as the upcoming objects get bigger the potential for catastrophe grows. Many astronomy enthusiasts would be happy to see bigger meteors, as bigger generally means more exciting pictures. Of course, once the meteors grow past a certain size even the most enthusiast astronomer might grow concerned about their imminent extinction... The joke in the last line is that once an asteroid grows past a certain size, it is less of a question of the object hitting earth and more a question of earth hitting a bigger planet. Ouch.
Mark McCaughrean
Mark McCaughrean  Β·  3 months ago

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When PR goes wrong πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ

If you’re going to advertise a nice space discovery, make sure your lead image shows it clearly.

Don’t lead with a context image in which it’s very hard to see and/or which could be misinterpreted.

Because the press will use that first image & everyone will be confused.

Case in point: this @guardian story about an Einstein ring seen by Euclid, PR’d by ESA this morning.

Can *you* see it? πŸ‘€

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/feb/10/euclid-telescope-captures-einstein-ring-revealing-warping-of-space

#SpaceScience#Astronomy

Mark McCaughrean
Mark McCaughrean  Β·  3 months ago

Content Warning

You might think that the Einstein ring is the large fuzzy halo around the bright white elliptical galaxy nucleus in that wide-field Euclid image, but it’s not.

The ring is small & tight around the nucleus. It’s hardly visible at all with the contrast in the main image, but easy once you play with the original data & extract it, as ESA did for this zoomed-in shot.

Except the Guardian photo editors didn’t use it as no-one made it clear to them.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid/Euclid_discovers_a_stunning_Einstein_ring

#SpaceScience#Astronomy

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