A single #HAMMER impactor (9-meter-tall, 8.8-ton) could deflect an object ☄️ 90 meters in diameter 📏 by around 1.4 Earth radii with 10 years of lead time – from the time of launch to anticipated Earth impact. If limited to #telescopic 🔭 observations, it’s possible that researchers may not be 100 percent certain of an #impact until less than a year before collision 💥. https://www.llnl.gov/article/44186/scientists-design-conceptual-asteroid-deflector-and-evaluate-it-against-massive-potential

#AsteroidThreat#AsteroidDeflection#Astronomy

Nothing to see here ... but we have a 50-meter #asteroid right now with a probability of 1:83 to #impact Earth in 2032 and cause an explosion with an energy comparable to the #Tunguska event: watch the page https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/details.html#?des=2024%20YR4 for the evolving assessment; when future astrometry eventually rules out an impact (as is the typical outcome of such cases) it will simply vanish.