asteroid

the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs created a “primordial soup” of new life

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Approximately 66 million years ago, a huge asteroid, 10 kilometers wide, fell on the Yucatan Peninsulain Mexico, causing such a violent impact that it wiped out three quarters of the plants and animals that then populated the Earth, including all non-avian dinosaurs. This has been well known for a long time. However, now something else has just been discovered. And the impact occurred in the perfect place for the proliferation of a hydrothermal system that laid the conditions for the proliferation of underground life for 8 million years. It wiped out the dinosaurs and a large number of animals, but it left us with ideal conditions for many new microorganisms to thrive. Said in a colloquial and extremely summarized way: the chickens that come in are the ones that come out. 4 times longer than established. An international team of scientists has carried out a study that combines data from rock samples extracted from the crater left by the asteroid and computer models of the geological behavior of the impact. Thus, it has been concluded that, when this occurred, immense heat was generated, which melted the rocks that in turn met the also hot water of the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, a porous material filled with pockets of water was formed, very conducive to the proliferation of microbial life. In fact, these types of studies had been carried out previously. However, both computational and chemical analysis methods were less advanced, so the duration of the resulting hydrothermal system was underestimated. Initially it was thought that it could have lasted about 2 million years, but this study points to 4 times more. The key is in the feldspar. In 2016 took place Expedition 364, in which a team of scientists traveled to the Chicxulub crater200 kilometers in diameter, to study the trail left by that asteroid 66 million years ago. They took several rock samples, including a feldspar very rich in potassium. The formation of this type of feldspar rock is common in hydrothermal systems such as the one formed by the asteroid impact. Therefore, this rock was chosen to carry out the appropriate analyses. Over time, thanks to a technique known as argon-argon dating, it has been possible to see that this rock was forming in the crater from 66 million years ago, as expected, until 58 million years ago. Therefore, it was 8 million years of hydrothermal system. Techniques advance. These impacts are extremely rare, but it is even rarer for them to result in such long-lasting hydrothermal systems. There is no known one so extensive caused by an impact, in fact. Therefore, thanks to advances in computer modeling techniques, it has been analyzed which conditions at the impact site favored this phenomenon. Combining data from Expedition 364 drilling with geological data extracted from previous modeling, it was concluded that there were three key factors: the high permeability of the rock, the sustained heat of the impact and the natural geothermal conditions of the site. Very interesting applications. Understanding this is very useful for two reasons. On the one hand, because it gives us information about the formation of life on the early Earth. And, on the other hand, because it also helps us understand how this would originate on other planets, where these types of collisions are much more common. Searching for life in space is like looking for a needle in a haystack. We all agree that it is necessary to narrow the search area. Initially it was thought that it should mostly be searched for planets that are within their habitable zone. That is, at a suitable distance from its star so that there can be liquid water. But today we know that there are other factors, like the absence of nearby black holeswhich may be relevant. Now, we also know which craters are the perfect places to start looking. All thanks to the asteroid that so long ago wiped out the dinosaurs. Image | Magnificent In Xataka | Now you can find out which dinosaurs were your neighbors thanks to this fun interactive map

steal materials from the asteroid belt (with a stop at a gas station)

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We haven’t built yet bases on the Moonbut already there are those who think in that future in which settlements can be built on Mars. If our satellite is a challenge, the red planet is already the pinnacle of complexity. Therefore, although there is still a lot of time for it to be viable, it doesn’t hurt to think about strategies. A good example is the proposal just made by a team of scientists led by aerospace engineer Serena Suriano. His proposal is based on one of the main problems that the space masons: the lack of materials. In the absence of suitable metals for construction there on Mars, they would have to be sought in the vicinity of the red planet. To do this, they propose “looting” the asteroid belt. It’s not that easy. In the asteroid belt There are metallic asteroids that could be mined for necessary metals such as molybdenum. But there is a problem. Traveling to these asteroids to take construction materials to Mars is not like taking the car on a Saturday to go to Ikea. In that case, the biggest handicap is the families that overcrowd the spaces. In the case of asteroids, the main problem is the orbital dance necessary to leave Mars, reach the asteroid and return. Luckily, these scientists consider that the problem could be solved with a couple of pit stops. An (almost) imaginary ship. When making calculations, it is normal to start from the parameters of a ship that actually exists. For this reason, these scientists have made simulations with an imaginary ship that is not the same, but looks like quite to the SpaceX Starship. The most powerful imaginable today. The ship in question weighs 120 tons, can carry a payload of 115 tons and hold up to 1,100 tons of fuel. This would mean a delta-v of 6.4 km/s. And what is that? The delta-v is a measure of the amount of effort necessary to carry out an orbital maneuver. In simpler terms, it is the change in speed that can be achieved by burning all the fuel in a ship. In this case it would be 6.4 km/s. The problem is that to reach the metallic asteroids that could be mined to build on Mars, taking into account the necessary orbital spins, a delta-v of 10 to 12.8 km/s would be needed. It can be solved. These scientists have designed a plan that includes two pit stops. The first would be on the metallic asteroid itself. Once the materials have been extracted, on the way back we would have to stop at a type C asteroid. These contain volatiles such as water and hydrocarbons, which would facilitate a process known as production on site of propellant. In other words, the type C asteroid would be used as a gas station, using its resources as propellant to continue the trip. If these stops are made, the necessary metals could be obtained with a delta-v of 6.4 km/s. The imaginary ship looks like Starship, but it is not the same 22 pairs. In total, there are 22 pairs of metallic asteroids and C-type asteroids in a 20-year window starting in 2040. This means that, from that moment, when it is assumed that trips to Mars and the construction of bases could already be viable, there would be more than 20 mine and gas station options to bring metals to the red planet. In total, 200 tons of metal could be obtained in that period. It may not seem like much if we consider that it is little more than the payload for a single trip. But fuel needs to be optimized. The loading process on site of propellant is carried out at a rate of 2 kg per day. To fill the tank it would take about 1,500 years. Logically, that is not viable, so you have to go with the tank half full and, therefore, adjust the payload. Why 20 years? For the trip to take place, it is necessary that the orbits of Mars and the asteroids are correctly aligned. It’s as if the road to Ikea only opens once every few years. Therefore, many trips could not be made. Building an entire base would take a lot of time, but it’s something you have to take on. A solution. If chemical propulsion is changed to solar propulsion or nuclearit would be much easier to extract metals from asteroids and, possibly, the deadlines would be shorter. However, these scientists have chosen to make their calculations with the only viable technology today. Maybe in the future the trip will be a little shorter than all this. Of course, building a base will continue to be a very, very long process. Many generations of humans would retire looking at those works. Image | NASA | SpaceX In Xataka | Elon Musk says it will take 1,000 Starships and 20 years to build the first sustainable city on Mars

A 4.6 billion-year-old “recorder” was hidden in asteroid dust: what it said changes what we knew

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We think of memory as something linked to memories that fade or transform over time. But there is another form of memory that is much more precise and stubborn, one that does not depend on people or technology and still preserves information with extraordinary fidelity. Some rocks are capable of recording the magnetic environment in which they were formed. That is what happens with the dust of a very particular asteroid: small particles that have preserved a magnetic signal for billions of years that today allows us to reconstruct what the solar system was like in its early stages. That “record” is not a metaphor. It comes from particles collected on the asteroid Ryugu and brought to Earth in 2020 by Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission. As Eurekalert points outa team led by Masahiko Sato has analyzed their magnetic behavior and has found signals that suggest that these particles retained information from the environment in which they were formed. This opens the door to reconstructing what the magnetic fields present in the protoplanetary diskthat is, the “nursery” where the planets were formed. {“videoId”:”x86bfqj”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”JAMES WEBB: A TIME MACHINE and a SPACE TELESCOPE”, “tag”:””, “duration”:”504″} A trace that cannot be erased. The key is how some minerals react to the magnetic field when they form. Its internal structures, formed by small magnetic domains, are oriented following that field and remain “locked” when the material solidifies. That process leaves a lasting mark that scientists can measure today with highly sensitive instruments. This phenomenon, known as natural remanent magnetization, turns these particles into physical witnesses of the past. The challenge. The first analyzes of these samples offered very different conclusions: some studies suggested that they preserved a stable magnetic signal from the early solar system, while others argued that they had formed in a region with practically no magnetic field. There were also those who suggested that the signals detected could be due to contamination during analysis on Earth. Part of the problem was based on these works, which were based on a very limited number of particles, just seven, which made it difficult to obtain solid conclusions. New samples. To resolve these discrepancies, The team significantly expanded the number of particles analyzedgoing from seven to 28, which allowed us to work with a much more solid statistical base. After applying demagnetization techniques to eliminate possible modern signals, the results showed a clearer pattern: 23 of the 28 particles retained a stable magnetic signal. Of these particles, eight showed two stable components and one presented spatially inhomogeneous magnetization directions, something difficult to explain if the signal had been introduced later on Earth. In Xataka We have a serious problem in our plans to colonize Mars: the astronauts’ blood is mutating Why is it important. The detected signals suggest that these materials originated in an early phase of the solar system, approximately between 3 and 7 million years after its formation. They also point to water alteration processes in the asteroid’s parent body. So we can say with great confidence that Ryugu is not just a pile of rocks: it is a valuable archive of the early solar system that has allowed us to better understand the magnetic environment of those times. Images | JAXA In Xataka | NASA is on its heels, so it has made a decision: advance its return to the Moon to 2030 (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news A 4.6 billion-year-old “recorder” was hidden in asteroid dust: what it said changes what we knew was originally published in Xataka by Javier Marquez .

It continues orbiting and was mistaken for an asteroid

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It’s not every day we see a car end up in space, but that’s exactly what happened in February 2018. with the first launch of the Falcon Heavy. On board was a Tesla Roadster and a mannequin nicknamed Starman, conceived as a test load for the mission. What is striking is that this was not a simple one-time experiment: over the years, this object has continued its trajectory around the Sun and has once again captured attention for reasons that go beyond the initial spectacle. What SpaceX sent into space that day was not just a car floating aimlessly, but a technical set designed to validate the behavior of the aforementioned rocket. The mission included the upper stage, the vehicle itself and the Starman dummy, and ended up placing them in a heliocentric orbit after a final maneuver outside of Earth’s gravity. According to NASAthat elliptical trajectory causes the object to move between distances comparable to the orbits of Earth and Mars. The car that one day looked like an asteroid The story took an unexpected turn in January 2025. The Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union announced the discovery of a new near-Earth object, identified as 2018 CN41. However, the correction came just a day later: “The orbit coincides with that of the artificial object 2018-017Athe upper stage of the Falcon Heavy with the Tesla Roadster. The 2018 CN41 designation will be removed and omitted,” they said. What seemed like an astronomical find was, in reality, the same car launched years ago. This episode is not only a curious anecdote, it also gives us clues about how sky surveillance works. Systems that track near-Earth objects work by comparing trajectories and observations to identify possible asteroids or comets, and they do so in an environment with tens of thousands of cataloged objects. This helps to understand why an artificial object can, for a brief moment, fit the parameters of a natural one. If we want to land the story in the present, the question is inevitable: where is that car right now. At the time of writing this article, whereisroadster.com placed the object about 284 million kilometers from Earth, about 214 million kilometers from Mars and about 229 million kilometers from the Sun. According to these calculations, it completes one revolution around the Sun approximately every 557 days and has already traveled more than 6,550 million kilometers since its launch. It is worth making an important clarification here: we are not seeing the car in real time. The position offered by tools such as the one mentioned is based on orbital models built from data collected after launch and subsequent calculations, not on continuous direct observations. NASA itself points out that the trajectory is adjusted with solutions such as those of the Horizons systemwhich implies that we are talking about very refined estimates, but not an exact location at all times. If we look back and forward, his career also leaves some interesting milestones. In 2020, for example, it made a close approach to Mars, passing within about 5 million miles of the planet. And it will not be the last: the US space agency’s forecasts point to new encounters in the coming decades, as a close pass to Mars in 2035 and approaches to Earth in 2047 and 2050, always within margins that do not imply impact. From there, what remains is the terrain of probabilities and very long-term scenarios. Some studies have attempted to calculate what could happen to the object in millions of years, including the possibility of collisions with Earth, Venus or even the Sun, although with low probabilities and subject to uncertainty. However, long-term predictions could be skewed by factors that are difficult to model, such as thermal radiation or possible uncharacterized degassing accelerations, leaving its final fate open. Images | SpaceX In Xataka | NASA has been racking its brains for years to figure out what we will eat on the Moon. Answer: Madrid stew

In 2024 we feared that the asteroid YR4 would impact the Earth. Now NASA believes the Moon is threatened

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For a few weeks at the beginning of 2025, the name 2024 YR4 became an absolute protagonist among the main institutions around the planet. It was no wonder, since this object, with an estimated size between 40 and 60 metersreached the level 3 on the Torino scalea milestone that we have not seen for a long time and that implies a probability of collision greater than 1% with the capacity to produce devastating local damage. We are saved. After this fear, science has managed to reach the conclusion that the Earth is safe now. However, the story of 2024 YR4 is not over, since the latest models suggest that, although it will avoid us, there is a non-negligible probability that it will end up crashing into the Moon. How we knew. Initially, NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) held his breath in early 2025. The first observations showed a worrying scenario for the year 2032 with this possible impact, but the moment more attention began to be paid to this object it was seen that it was not going to end up on Earth. The key to being able to breathe a little calmer again lies in the ‘shoulders’ of the James Webb which began making observations in May 2025. The space telescope made it possible to refine the asteroid’s orbit with a 20% precision improvement, confirming that there is no risk of impact against our planetnor an orbital alteration of the Moon that could affect us secondarily. But by closing a door, the JWST opened a fascinating and destructive window: the probability that 2024 YR4 will impact the Moon has risen from 3.8% to 4.3%. The lunar judgment. According to studies recently published on arXiv, the key date is December 22, 2032. That day is where there is about a 1 in 23 chance that we will see a violent spectacle on the lunar surface with an impact that would release an energy of 6.5 megatons of TNT. This is something very relevant, since this great energy would generate a crater approximately one kilometer in diameter and the ejection of 100 million kilos of lunar debris with a cloud of material equivalent to the weight of about 20,000 elephants. From Earth. Logically, this impact, although it does not occur on the planet, the truth is that it will have important consequences and not exactly physical ones, but rather a visual phenomenon. The debris that will be ejected from the Moon could enter the Earth’s atmosphere some time later, generating an unprecedented meteor shower caused by a secondary impact. The use of technology. Over time, the European Space Agency has also validated this data, placing the size of the object more specifically between 53 and 67 meters and confirming the 4% probability of having an impact on the moon. Although logically we also have a 96% chance that it will completely pass from the Moon. But this asteroid has had a very positive point: it has vindicated the need to improve space detection tools. And right now these objects are hiding in the “blind spot” of the sun’s glare, although with this one we were lucky that the ATLAS system in Chile managed to detect it. A future mission. Given this limitation that we have, the ESA has seen it necessary to activate the NEOMIR missionsince if it had already been active, it would have detected the asteroid a month earlier, offering vital reaction time if the threat had been against the Earth and not against the Moon. And now what. For now, we have to wait. The asteroid has moved away in this case and will not be in an optimal position to make an observation again until 2028. It will be then that astronomers will be able to refine this 4.3% probability and tell us definitively whether we will spend Christmas 2032 looking at the Moon to see how a new crater forms live. Images | Mike Petrucci NASA Hubble Space Telescope In Xataka | Japan has lost a five-ton satellite in the most unusual way imaginable: “it fell” during launch

In 2024 an asteroid loaded with precious metals psó touching us. The goal is now to hunt the next one with a giant bag

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A year ago, astronomers saw how an asteroid entered the orbit of our planet and accompanied us for almost two months. This “mini-luna” baptized as 2024 PT5 was a warning sign for an industry that never ends up detachment: space mining. The passage of the rock full of rare metals lit the fuse of a new race to not let the next one. The new objective of space mining. The idea that asteroids are floating treasures is not new. According to NASA’s calculationsthe metals contained in the asteroid belt could be equivalent to 100 million dollars for each person on Earth. The problem has always been the same: the prohibitive cost of reaching them. But this type of “mini-lunas” like 2024 PT5, that we are able to detect with current technologythe rules of the game change when approaching us, becoming much more affordable objectives. The Plan: Not Atrices, capture. Landing in an asteroid is a logistics nightmare. They turn at high speed, do not have a significant seriousness that maintains an anchored ship and are covered with a powder that would stuck any machinery. Therefore, the new strategy is not to perch on them, but to capture them in full flight. This is where concepts that seem taken from a science fiction film come into play. Companies like the Tethers Unlimited disappeared They worked on satellite designs capable of launching a gigantic network to catch an asteroid and tow it to a stable orbit. The company failed, but its idea prevails: stop the rotation of asteroids to process them. NASA to hunt asteroids. One of the companies that leads this race was founded by a veteran of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of La NASA, Joel Sercel. The plan of Transaster It is a three -phase technological deployment: Detect: its Sutter telescope system has been designed to find small, dark and fast objects, such as asteroids close to the earth that until now went unnoticed. Capture: His proposal is called Capture Bag, and is a kind of giant inflatable bag designed to completely wrap the asteroid. Process: Once trapped, they would use a technology called optical mining. It consists of using concentrated sunlight with a kind of magnifying glass on an industrial scale to heat the asteroid. This allows you to extract water (in the form of ice) and separate precious metals such as platinum, cobalt or nickel. Precious metals … and precious water. Although metals are the fat prize, the most valuable short -term resource is water. As Joel Serce explains In an interview for Caltechwater is the “oil” of the solar system. It can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen to create rocket fuel. Extract water from an asteroid and store it in orbit would create the first “space gas stations”. Being quantifies it: 100 tons of water extracted from an asteroid the size of a house, enough to fill a pool, they would have an approximate value of 1,000 million dollars in space. Simply because of the cost that would mean throwing so much water from the earth. To move these loads, Transastra is developing a fleet of tugs called worker bee whose engines can use that water as propellant. Waiting for the next mini-luna. The passage of 2024 PT5 was a lost opportunity. “If we had had our systems in operation, we could have gone for it,” he confessed to being. The industry was not ready, but the starting gun has already sounded. The next time a cosmic treasure approaches the earth, there may be giant networks or bags waiting for it. The 21st century gold fever does not look underground, but towards the stars. Image | NASA, JPL In Xataka | The Earth has lost its miniluna, but posed for a photo before leaving (and promised to return soon)

Two years ago, an asteroid exploded over France with unusual violence. What saved the French was their size

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February 13, 2023. It was 4:59 in the morning when a violent explosion illuminated the skies of Normandynorth of France. It was not a ray, nor a missile. It was the end of a travel of millions of kilometers for a small asteroid called 2023 Cx1. Seven hours of notice. The 650 -kilogram rock had just a meter in diameter, so it had been detected only seven hours before impact. But the most disturbing thing was not his surprise arrival, but his behavior when entering the earth’s atmosphere. An exhaustive analysis published two and a half years later in Nature Astronomy He has revealed that, if the asteroid had been larger, the consequences of his extraordinary explosion could have been devastating. A high -risk meteor. Most meteorites are fragmenting as they descend through the atmosphere, but 2023 CX1 endured intact until it reached a distance to the ground of only 28 kilometers. At that point, the pressure made it explode like a pump. After traveling through space for about 30 million years, the asteroid released 98% of all its kinetic energy in a second fraction. And in a very concentrated region of the atmosphere, when it reached a dynamic pressure of 4 megapascal. It does not compare with Cheliábinsk. The 2023 CX1 behavior was radically different from that of the car whose explosion of 500 kilotons He broke windows and caused hundreds of injured in Russia in 2013. The one in France generated a spherical shock wave instead of cylindrical, concentrating much more energy and greatly increasing the area of ​​soil affected by overpressure. According to researchers, this type of abrupt fragmentation could cause much more damage than the progressive fragmentations of similar size bodies. The French were lucky that it was so small. More firewood for planetary defense. The analysis was based on an unprecedented number of observations after mobilizing the scientific and citizen community in those seven hours of margin. The prediction of the fall by ESA and NASA had a margin of error of less than 20 meters between the planned and observed trajectory, which in turn facilitated the recovery of more than one hundred fragments of the meteorite in the commune of Saint-Pierre-Le Viger. According to the CSICwhich participated in the investigation, this event confirms the existence of a new population of asteroids, type L chondrites, capable of these violent explosions. “These asteroids must be taken into account in the Planetary Defense Strategiessince they represent a higher risk for populated areas, “says Auriane Egal, first author of the study. With what we know today, perhaps the authorities activate evacuation plans the next time an asteroid of this type threatens us. Provided that detection systems do not fail, and detect the threat in time. Image | THAT In Xataka | Tunguska: the explosion of 12 megatones that reminds us that space is full of wonders, but also of horrors

His next mission for this year is to divert an asteroid

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We may not finally need Bruce Willis, but Armageddon It is no longer a movie as unlikely as it seemed. After the United States managed to divert an asteroid for the first time in history, China prepares to launch its own planetary defense mission this year. Of course, with something that NASA did not have: a second probe to record everything live. A little context. In 2013, NASA and the European Space Agency created the AIDA program to demonstrate the asteroid deviation close to Earth. He NASA Dart Kinetic Impactor It would crash at high speed over a small asteroid called Dimorfo, and the AIM orbiter developed by that would record the event live to measure the effects of impact. ESA ended up abandoning the development of AIM due to the lack of financial support of the Member States. But NASA continued with the development of Dart and, on September 26, 2022, the asteroid successfully diverted, with a small Italian Cubesat (Lyciacube) as the only witness of the feat. The hera mission of ESA, AIM spiritual successor, is traveling to Dimorfo to take data From his arrival in December 2026, four years after the impact. Now it’s China. Although NASA-that collaboration did not materialize as conceived, China has its own version of AIDA. For now it is known as “experimental test of the asteroid defense system close to Earth”, but is very close to becoming a reality (probably with a less aseptic name). Wu Weiren, designer of some of the most important missions of the Chinese space program, commented at a conference in Heféi that the launch is scheduled as this year aboard a CZ-3B rocket. If it succeeds, the mission will make China the second country in the world deliberately against an asteroid to modify its orbit. And what is better: with a second probe loaded with sensors to record the live impact. Two ships instead of one. Unlike NASA’s mission, which sent a single Kamikaze probe with the Italian Cubesat inside, China’s plan contemplates the launch of two ships: an impactor and an observer that will make an exhaustive recognition. As for the asteroid, The chosen one is 2020 pn1located in an orbit of horseshoe to dozens of millions of kilometers from the earth. As details Wu Weirenthe observer will come first to map and obtain precise physical data. Shortly after, the impact ship will collide at high speed against the asteroid under the watchful eye of the observer, in addition to a combined network of telescopes on land and space. The objective is to accurately measure changes in orbit, morphology and material expelled by the clash of the ship, to evaluate the effectiveness of the impact. The goal is even more modest than that of Dart: produce an orbital deviation of between 3 and 5 centimeters. More difficult than it seems. The ship will have to travel for months, adjusting its course to hit an object of just a few hundred meters in diameter, with a minimum margin of error. To which you have to add uncertainty about the composition of the asteroid: it is not the same to collide with a solid rock than against an amalgam of loose rubble. The challenge is immense. “How to hit a fly from tens of millions of kilometers away”, PUBLISH THE GLOBAL Times. But NASA showed that it is possible, and now China has the opportunity to confirm that humanity is able to defend itself from one of the greatest existential threats faced by the Earth: the impact of a nearby object. The first test of a long -term plan. This mission is just the first piece of an ambitious puzzle with which China plans to establish a complete detection and defense system against asteroids. The country already has a land surveillance network, which includes the telescope of the Purple Mountain Observatory and the “China Compound Eye” project, a set of radars capable of obtaining high -precision images of asteroids to millions of kilometers. The plan is to complement this terrestrial network with a fleet of observation satellites in space and have a catalog of options to act as a threat is detected. It is not science fiction, but a real and urgent plan. In early 2025, in the midst of the growing concern for asteroid 2024 YR4, China opened a recruitment process In search of experts in astrophysics and international cooperation to create their own planetary defense force. Space muscle demonstration. This new mission comes at a time when China’s space program advances at a dizzying pace in contrast to NASA’s scientific cuts. China’s experience in handling deep space is growing, and has already achieved milestones that the United States does not possess, such as bringing samples of the hidden face of the moon. In May of this year, China also launched the Tianwen-2 probe, which is directed to the quasi-satellite Kamo’oalewa to collect the first samples of this peculiar object, A probable fragment of our moon. The samples would arrive to the Earth in 2027. Subsequently, the ship will continue its trip to a cometr of the main belt, in the farthest mission ever undertaken by the country. The next step: bring the first samples of Mars with Tianwen-3, something that seems to China will also get Before the United States and Europe. Image | THAT In Xataka | We already know that Asteroid YR4 will not collide with the earth. The probability of impact with the moon, on the other hand, has risen to 4%

There is a 2% probability that the asteroid impact the earth, but we will not know how much it measures until the webb observes it

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He Asteroid 2024 YR4 He has aroused unusual interest since his discovery on December 27. Although the probability of impact with the earth remains very low, has risen from 1 to 2% As new observations are obtained. However, astronomers are having difficulty measuring their size and have decided to resort to the most powerful space telescope in history to get out of doubt. There is a problem in how an asteroid is measured. Until now, the size estimates of 2024 YR4 have oscillated between 40 and 90 meters in diameter, a too wide range to assess the danger that would represent an eventual impact with our planet. This lack of precision has a reason and is that The size of the asteroid is calculated from the reflected visible lighta method that depends on the reflectivity of its surface. 2024 YR4 could be an object of 40 meters very reflective or an object of 90 meters very dark. As well as any intermediate option. The James Webb space telescope to the rescue. Unlike other observatories, The 10,000 million dollar telescopeoperated by NASA, ESA and the Canadian space agency, does not observe the visible spectrum, but the infrared spectrum, and with an unprecedented sensitivity. Astronomers will allocate hours of webb use to analyze the infrared light emitted by the asteroid to obtain a more precise measurement of its size and temperature. With luck, it will allow them to discern whether 2024 YR4 is at the lower or upper end of the estimated range, crucial information to better evaluate the consequences of their unlikely but possible impact. Two rounds of observation are planned. Space agencies have foreseen Two rounds of crucial observations With the Webb Telescope. The first will take place in early March, when the asteroid is at its point of greatest brightness and visibility for the telescope. The second round, scheduled for May, will allow scientists to study how the object temperature varies as it moves away from the sun, in addition to continuing to obtain data on its trajectory when the object has ceased to be visible by terrestrial telescopes. Why fluctuate the probability of impact. The 2% estimate is the most up -to -date ES has provided so far (NASA publishes a 2.1% estimate). The figure varies constantly because the calculations have been incorporating new observations that reduce the uncertainty of their trajectory. These fluctuations are, in fact, typical behavior in the estimation of the impact risk of newly discovered objects. NASA planetary defense equipment and ESA are based on orbital dynamic systems (such as Scout, Sentry, Meerkat and Aegis) that generate multiple possible trajectories for the asteroid. As less likely orbits are discarded, targeting on Earth may increase the fraction of possible impacts, although, over time, additional observations allow the threat to definitively discard. If this were not the case with 2024 YR4, we would be talking about a meteorite that could fall in countries as populated as Colombia, Nigeria or India on January 22, 2032. Then we would start talking about a mission to divert it, a task in the that We already have some practice. Image | Two of the 18 mirrors of the Webb Telescope (NASA/C. GUNN) In Xataka | The impact probability of asteroid 2024 YR4 has risen to 1.6%. The UN has already activated a special protocol

The probability that the asteroid falls on Earth has risen to 2.3%. Even the Webb Telescope is monitoring it

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The last NASA calculations They place the probability that the asteroid 2024 YR4 impact with the land by 2.3%, a figure that the European Space Agency (ESA) has confirmed with Its own 2.27% estimate. For those who have lost their account, in just one week of observations We have gone from 1 between 83 possibilities that the asteroid crosses the planet Earth to 1 between 43. The options are still low, but they are high enough for the offices of NASA planetary defense and that They have intensified their monitoring efforts. To the James Webb space telescope, 10,000 million dollars, will be monitoring The little asteroid. 2024 YR4 is not much, but with A diameter of between 40 and 90 meterscould destroy an entire city if it survived the reentry and impact an urban area. When? On January 22, 2032. Where? At some point in the strip that extends from the East of the Pacific Ocean to northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Arabian Sea and the south of Asia. It should be noted that These impact estimates They are calculated taking as reference the quotient between the diameter of the earth and the width of the area of ​​uncertainty of the asteroid, generated from simulations. The problem: 2024 YR4 is moving away from Earth In an elliptical trajectorywhich hinders its detection with conventional instruments. In a few weeks it will have become so faint that even professional four -meter telescopes have trouble capturing it. As of April, it will be necessary to resort to the Webb or the Vary Large Telescope of the Austral European Observatory to continue watching it until the object reappears In June 2028. The monitoring of the trajectory of an asteroid is a dynamic process that surely gives us a roller coaster of emotions. As more observations from the asteroid and its trajectory have, the probability of impact could increase again and then progressively reduce until reaching zeroconfirming the main hypothesis: that the asteroid will pass by instead of colliding with the earth. If not, the good news is that humanity has experience in asteroid diversion. In 2022, NASA’s dart mission He showed that it is possible to alter the trajectory of a spatial object through a kinetic impact. This historical achievement is the empirical test that we have the technology and knowledge necessary to at least try to protect our planet. Meanwhile, the UN has put on alert the Space Missions Advisory Group (SMPAG), which agreed to meet again at the end of April or early May to study possible mitigation measures in case the probability of impact is maintained or increased . Image | Daniel Bamberger In Xataka | The impact probability of asteroid 2024 YR4 has risen to 1.6%. The UN has already activated a special protocol

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