ASLI Club Observing Night (Alternative Event)

We will be meeting in the Planetarium for a Discussion Group. 

We are going to try something new for an alternate meeting on Wednesday night because observing is cancelled due to weather.

As suggested by John Speroni and Bill Hendler, we are going to have a “round table” without the table.  We are going to have a discussion group both in person at the Vanderbilt, and on ZOOM.

The first topic on the agenda will be the asteroid that has been calculated to be a possible threat in 2032.

“A large asteroid known as 2024 YR4 has grabbed headlines this week as scientists first raised its chances of hitting earth, then lowered them. The latest estimate says the object has a 0.28% chance of hitting Earth in 2032, significantly lower than the 3.1% chance earlier in the week.”

We will show a short video with information about the asteroid, and then we will start the discussion.  I haven’t paid a lot of attention to this, so I am looking forward to the talk and to hear people sharing information about this subject.

SO:

Here are links to three videos about  the subject.  Number 2 may be the only one you need to watch.  Or you can just wait to see it Wednesday night.  I am going to watch it before the meeting in case I want to look up more information before the meeting.

From John Speroni:

Bill suggested the Dr. Becky channel that I already had some familiarity with, and I regularly watch Scott Manley's channel, so here are some possibilities about some asteroid news from last week.

1) Dr. Becky (asteroid chapter starting 11:50, view for 4 minutes): https://youtu.be/mspd2HXF-3o?t=714

2) Scott Manley, focusing on how to redirect an asteroid (first 8 minutes then too much math for most: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5IXX4p2d0

3) Also Scott Manley, entire 14 minutes is asteroid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esk1hg2knno

I think I prefer #2 or 3 because they give us more to discuss.  4 minutes is a little too short. The most informative part for me was learning how, despite uncertainty about *if* it will hit Earth, a surprising amount is known about *where* it might hit.

Ideas for discussion include how to find and track hazardous objects, what would be needed to redirect it, and international complications if nations want it redirected in different ways.

After this discussion, if we have more time, we are open to other discussions.  If you have any suggestions for any other topics please post them in reply to this note.

One of the things we are trying to do here is to still have a meeting on nights when observing is cancelled, which, of course happens a lot.