3049: Incoming Asteroid - Revision history

Whoop whoop pull up: /* Explanation */

2026-03-29T05:38:14Z

‎Explanation

Kynde: Removing news as bad/good news should not be included

2026-02-08T17:22:46Z

Removing news as bad/good news should not be included

Kynde: Category:News

2026-02-07T14:58:10Z

Category:News

2001:E68:544D:5984:2185:1ACD:59AA:485F: Fixed typo

2025-12-10T11:31:19Z

Fixed typo

FaviFake: /* List of sizes and consequences */

2025-06-16T14:42:52Z

‎List of sizes and consequences

FaviFake: /* List of sizes and consequences */

2025-06-16T14:42:41Z

‎List of sizes and consequences

172.68.30.153: /* List of sizes and consequences */

2025-03-19T18:34:23Z

‎List of sizes and consequences

FaviFake: thx

2025-03-19T16:36:21Z

thx

Cheesesentience at 15:42, 19 March 2025

2025-03-19T15:42:08Z

Cheesesentience at 18:10, 6 March 2025

2025-03-06T18:10:16Z

@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 ==Explanation==
-This comic may be inspired by the recent discovery of asteroid {{w|2024 YR4|2024 YR<sub>4</sub>}}, which, on the date of the comic (February, 10, 2025), was estimated to have about 1-in-48 chance of striking Earth on December 22, 2032. Its size is estimated to be 40-90 meters. Currently, it is rated a 3 (out of a maximum of 10) on the {{w|Torino scale}}, a metric designed to evaluate the danger of a potential strike from a {{w|near-Earth object}}. On this comic's scale (see [[#List of sizes and consequences|details below]]) it would be placed on the fourth label, the first label with bad news, as it could wipe out a city with a direct hit.
+This comic may be inspired by the recent discovery of asteroid {{w|2024 YR4|2024 YR<sub>4</sub>}}, which, on the date of the comic (February 10, 2025), was estimated to have about 1-in-48 chance of striking Earth on December 22, 2032. Its size is estimated to be 40-90 meters.  At the time, it was rated a 3 (out of a maximum of 10) on the {{w|Torino scale}}, a metric designed to evaluate the danger of a potential strike from a {{w|near-Earth object}} (further observations soon eliminated the possibility of an Earth impact, however). On this comic's scale (see [[#List of sizes and consequences|details below]]) it would be placed on the fourth label, the first label with bad news, as it could wipe out a city with a direct hit.
 The Torino scale specifically addresses the future chance of impact, however, as well as the resulting energy (rather than pure mass or size) brought by the prospective impactor, and the retroactive Torino 8 classification of the similarly-sized Tunguska meteor, given as an 'example' in the table, is not really in the intended scope of the rating system, with events that have already happened already having reached 100% possibility with nothing left to plan for. For all foreseeable events, it is expected that the odds of impact (and therefore the Torino number) will continue to change as further observations refine the expected path into the vicinity of Earth, one or more times; it is generally hoped that all objects of interest will eventually reduce to zero, but for anything to reach levels 8 to 10 indicates the near-certainty of three distinct ranges of significant impact, which ''would'' need to be prepared for in one or more ways.

@@ Line 100: / Line 100: @@
 {{comic discussion}}
 [[Category:Charts]]
 [[Category:Astronomy]]
 [[Category:Space]]

@@ Line 100: / Line 100: @@
 {{comic discussion}}
 [[Category:Charts]]
 [[Category:Astronomy]]
 [[Category:Space]]

@@ Line 58: / Line 58: @@
 ! 2,000 km
 |Good news for any life that might someday evolve on Earth's new moon.
-|Earth's moon is believed to have been formed when Earth, in its infancy, was hit by an object of roughly this size. The comic assumes that another moon would form from another such impact, hypothesizes that life might evolve on that moon, {{tvtropes|BadNewsInAGoodWay|and pretends that it's good news}}.  Is is almost guaranteed that this would be so disruptive it would eliminate all life on earth either directly (via the heat and shock of the impact) or indirectly (via the loss of the oceans, much of the atmosphere, dust blocking the sun, or the entire surface of the earth being covered in magma) - however, there are {{w|Extremophile|extremophiles}} which could possibly survive the resulting conditions.
+|Earth's moon is believed to have been formed when Earth, in its infancy, was hit by an object of roughly this size. The comic assumes that another moon would form from another such impact, hypothesizes that life might evolve on that moon, {{tvtropes|BadNewsInAGoodWay|and pretends that it's good news}}. It is almost guaranteed that this would be so disruptive it would eliminate all life on earth either directly (via the heat and shock of the impact) or indirectly (via the loss of the oceans, much of the atmosphere, dust blocking the sun, or the entire surface of the earth being covered in magma) - however, there are {{w|Extremophile|extremophiles}} which could possibly survive the resulting conditions.
 |-
 ! 25,000 km

@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 The title text adds an additional point about asteroids on the larger end of the scale, which have enough mass to change Earth's orbit. If it changed enough it might intersect the orbit of other planets (probably Venus or Mars, since those are the closest, ([https://youtu.be/SumDHcnCRuU?si=_ZehAVFqTREdgSJb maybe])). This might lead to Earth colliding with that planet. Also, even without a collision, the changed orbit might perturb '''their''' orbits due to the Earth's gravitational force and cause negative consequences by either invoking or revoking {{w|Commensurability (astronomy)|orbital resonances}} between the various inner planets.
-===List of sizes and consequences===
+===Sizes and consequences===
 {|class="wikitable sortable"
 ! scope="col" | Size

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 ===List of sizes and consequences===
-Sizes are approximate.
+{|class="wikitable sortable"
 ! scope="col" | Size
 ! scope="col" | Randall's news
 ! scope="col" | Explanation
 |-
-|'''1 cm'''
+! 1 cm
 |Good news! Meteors are pretty!
 |Burn up in the atmosphere, becoming nothing more than a streak in the sky.
 |-
-|'''30 cm'''
+! 30 cm
 |Great news! You might see a fireball!
 |Might descend far enough for the flames of its entry to be visible with the naked eye ({{w|bolide}}).
 |-
-|'''3 m'''
+! 3 m
 |Okay news, unless you have expensive windows or are very unlucky.
 |Can descend far enough for the shockwave of its passing to shatter windows. The comic mockingly claims this is only a problem if your windows are expensive or happen to get directly hit by it. Of course, the shattering windows are also concerns for safety, as the {{w|Chelyabinsk meteorite}}, which sits near the upper bound of this category at approximately 18 m in diameter, damaged more than 7,000 buildings and injured around 1,500 people with its shockwave.
 |-
-|'''60 m'''
+! 60 m
 |Bad news, especially if you live near the city it's aimed at.
 |The {{w|Tunguska event|Tunguska meteor}}, which flattened and burnt over 2,000 km<sup>2</sup> of Siberian forest in 1908, was 50-60 m across. It would have been rated an 8 on the Torino scale as a certain collision with localized destruction, the very lowest level of active concern for any (near-)certain event.
 |-
-|'''600 m'''
+! 600 m
 |Bad news, especially if you live on the continent it's aimed at.
 |Can easily cause localized extinction, and can be expected to have effects on the rest of the world as well.
 |-
-|'''9 km'''
+! 9 km
 |Bad news for your species.
 |The {{w|Chicxulub crater|Chicxulub asteroid}} that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs was about 10 km in diameter.
 |-
-|'''50 km'''
+! 50 km
 |Bad news for your phylum.
 |{{w|Chordate|Our phylum}} is primarily all the vertebrate animals.  The implication is that an asteroid over five times as wide (thus 125 times as massive) as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs would cause the extinction of every animal with a spinal cord, which includes all of the higher life forms on earth (fish, and mammals).  Presumably other, less complex, forms of life would survive.
 |-
-|'''300 km'''
+! 300 km
 |Bad news for your biosphere.
 |A global extinction event is pretty much guaranteed.
 |-
-|'''2,000 km'''
+! 2,000 km
 |Good news for any life that might someday evolve on Earth's new moon.
 |Earth's moon is believed to have been formed when Earth, in its infancy, was hit by an object of roughly this size. The comic assumes that another moon would form from another such impact, hypothesizes that life might evolve on that moon, {{tvtropes|BadNewsInAGoodWay|and pretends that it's good news}}.  Is is almost guaranteed that this would be so disruptive it would eliminate all life on earth either directly (via the heat and shock of the impact) or indirectly (via the loss of the oceans, much of the atmosphere, dust blocking the sun, or the entire surface of the earth being covered in magma) - however, there are {{w|Extremophile|extremophiles}} which could possibly survive the resulting conditions.
 |-
-|'''25,000 km'''
+! 25,000 km
 |Bad news for whatever planet is about to get hit by Earth.
 |At this size, the "asteroid" is over twice as large as Earth itself (whose diameter is about 12,700 km) and would only not be a planet due to a lack of a "{{w|Clearing the neighbourhood|clear neighborhood}}". Therefore, the comic points out, it would be more accurate to describe the Earth as crashing into the "asteroid"/other planet, not the other way around. Since the Earth would be totally destroyed in such an event, it would be the planet it hits that feels the aftermath of the impact, and would thus be classed as very bad news for anyone living on that planet, insofar as there could be anybody to experience any aftermath.

@@ Line 63: / Line 63: @@
 |'''25,000 km'''
 |Bad news for whatever planet is about to get hit by Earth.
-|{{incomplete|Need to rephrase this part to make it more fluent.{{Actual citation needed}}}}
+At this size, the "asteroid" is over twice as large as Earth itself (whose diameter is about 12,700 km) and would only not be a planet due to a lack of a "cleared neighborhood". Therefore, the comic points out, it would be more accurate to describe the Earth as crashing into the "asteroid"/other planet, not the other way around. Since the Earth would be totally destroyed in such an event, it would be the planet it hits that feels the aftermath of the impact, and would thus be classed as very bad news for anyone living on that planet, insofar as there could be anybody to experience any aftermath.
 This was actually a plot point in the film {{w|Melancholia (2011 film)|Melancholia}} where it turns out that it is Earth that is colliding with the much bigger planet Melancholia, not the other way around. To be positioned well beyond the bottom end of this diagram, the film {{w|When Worlds Collide (1951 film)|When Worlds Collide}} entails a collision between the Earth and a vastly larger star passing through the solar system, or vice-versa, with no noted ill-effects to that star, nor to a planet (in orbit around that star) to which the few survivors from Earth escape.