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White to move and mate in two #653 - Asteroid 2024 YR4 Update [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-15
Remember asteroid 2024 YR4, which generated quite a scare earlier this year for a possible collision with earth in 2032 but which, after further characterization of its orbit, was declared a definite miss?
We have some additional data on the asteroid after new observations from the Gemini South telescope in Chile and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Astronomers have constructed a 3D representation of asteroid 2024 YR4. Instead of being shaped like a ball or a potato, it has a hockey-puck-like shape, with a 3:1 axial ratio. In the animation below, it looks like a flat angular rock one skips along the surface of a pond but of size 30–65 m. noirlab.edu/...
It also has a retrograde direction high spin rate with a period of ~20 minutes.
Here are three orthogonal views of a convex shape model of asteroid 2024 YR4 from the paper - a top down view (X-Y) and 2 side views (X-Z and Y-Z).
The asteroid is spinning around the Z axis.
Note that we do not have actual images of the asteroid; it is too small and too far for direct imaging.
Based on measurements by the JWST in March and additional observations by ground based telescopes, the probability of the asteroid impacting the Moon has increased from 1.7% to 3.8% on Dec 22, 2032. Size estimate is 60m. science.nasa.gov/... Now let’s zoom in and solve today’s puzzle composed in 1973 by noted Dutch chess composer and Grandmaster Jacobus Haring (1913 - 1989). P.S.
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