This week's science news includes the discovery of a hidden underground lake and an asteroid dubbed a 'city killer'. (Image credit: Neuron Foundation/buradaki/Getty Images) Jump to:
This week's science news focused on the potential threat posed by an asteroid called 2024 YR4. But should we really be worried?
On February 7, NASA experts increased the probability of this so-called “city killer” colliding with our planet in 2032 from 1.2% to 2.3%, which almost doubles the risk of a possible impact.
The potentially threatening asteroid is estimated to be 180 feet (55 meters) in diameter — about as wide as Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World is tall. At that size, 2024 YR4 is too small to destroy human civilization, but it could still wipe out a major city by releasing an estimated 8 megatons of energy on impact — more than 500 times the power of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan.
There is also an extremely unlikely possibility that this space object could collide with the Moon!
An international team of scientists has been granted emergency permission to use the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to further study the body and its trajectory, but the risk of a collision remains very low.
“This asteroid is not a cause for concern,” David Rankin, a research engineer with the Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona, told Live Science.
Giant Hidden Lake Discovered: The world's largest underground thermal lake has been discovered in Albania at the bottom of a 330-foot abyss.
Speleologists have discovered the world's largest underground thermal bath
Sourse: www.livescience.com
