I guess the probability of something hitting us is intuitively pretty low. Consider that in all of human history nothing significant has hit us, and now only in the last 20 years maybe we have the tech to see it and maybe launch a mission to mitigate it, what are the chances something would suddenly hit us now, at this very time?
> Consider that in all of human history nothing significant has hit us
This is incorrect. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor was very recent and caught on video by many people. It injured nearly 1500 people and damaged 7,200 buildings in six cities.
The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event in 1908 was several times larger than the Chelyabinsk meteor and leveled 830 square miles of forest. It is fortunate that it detonated over an unpopulated area. It could have completely destroyed any major metropolitan city.
This paper isn't talking about a risk of an Earth impact, it's talking about a potential lunar impact:
> Studies of 2024 YR4’s potential lunar impact effects suggest lunar ejecta could increase micrometeoroid debris flux in low Earth orbit up to 1000 times above background levels over just a few days, possibly threatening astronauts and spacecraft.
Throughout most of human history, an impact event like this could probably have gone completely unnoticed, because we didn't yet have satellites that were vulnerable to micrometeoroid damage. So you can't use the fact that no such event was observed as evidence that it didn't happen.
We also now have the ability to know which lottery numbers have not come up in a long time but that doesn’t change the odds that we can pick a winning number.
I guess the probability of something hitting us is intuitively pretty low. Consider that in all of human history nothing significant has hit us, and now only in the last 20 years maybe we have the tech to see it and maybe launch a mission to mitigate it, what are the chances something would suddenly hit us now, at this very time?
> Consider that in all of human history nothing significant has hit us
This is incorrect. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor was very recent and caught on video by many people. It injured nearly 1500 people and damaged 7,200 buildings in six cities.
The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event in 1908 was several times larger than the Chelyabinsk meteor and leveled 830 square miles of forest. It is fortunate that it detonated over an unpopulated area. It could have completely destroyed any major metropolitan city.
A little further back there's the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesi... which is controversial but very possibly caused planet wide climate change visible in the geologic record ~12,900 years ago.
Smaller meteors fall into our gravity well regularly, and usually detonate over or impact the ocean, as it covers most of the Earth's surface.
This paper isn't talking about a risk of an Earth impact, it's talking about a potential lunar impact:
> Studies of 2024 YR4’s potential lunar impact effects suggest lunar ejecta could increase micrometeoroid debris flux in low Earth orbit up to 1000 times above background levels over just a few days, possibly threatening astronauts and spacecraft.
Throughout most of human history, an impact event like this could probably have gone completely unnoticed, because we didn't yet have satellites that were vulnerable to micrometeoroid damage. So you can't use the fact that no such event was observed as evidence that it didn't happen.
We also now have the ability to know which lottery numbers have not come up in a long time but that doesn’t change the odds that we can pick a winning number.