Measles Outbreaks, Asteroid Risks and Fish Friends

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

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Summary

The black hole at the center of our galaxy is emitting near-constant, random light. The European Space Agency has approved astronaut candidate John McFall, making McFall the first physically disabled candidate to be cleared to fly. The risk of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth rose to more than 3 percent and then dipped down to 1.5 percent with new data—our February 12 episode explained why this risk has been changing. Recommended reading: Hear our February 12 episode about asteroid 2024 YR4: https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/what-we-know-about-2024-yr4-the-asteroid-with-a-2-percent-chance-of-impact/ Read more of guest host Allison Parshall’s exceptional coverage: https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/allison-parshall/ E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Allison Parshall, Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Allison Parshall. Our show is edited by Naeem Amarsy with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:27.8	slash UK slash AI for people. Happy Monday listeners, for Scientific American Science Quickly. This is
0:36.2	Alison Partial filling in for Rachel Feltman.
0:39.1	Let's get the week started by catching up on some of the latest science news.
0:47.5	First, a quick update on our favorite ominous asteroid. The rock dubbed 2024 YR4 briefly had an even higher probability of hitting Earth than the last time we mentioned it.
0:58.3	Early last week, NASA pegged the Rock's chances of smashing into us in 2032 at more than 3%.
1:04.0	That was the highest impact probability ever recorded for an asteroid of its size or larger, but you can relax because as of last Thursday, that estimate
1:11.9	had fallen back down to a reassuring 1.5%.
1:15.6	It's totally understandable if you find all of this wishy-washiness a bit disconcerting,
1:20.7	but rest assured that things are playing out more or less exactly the way that scientists
1:24.7	told us to expect.
1:26.0	For more information on 2024 YR4 and why its
1:28.7	chances of hitting us just keep changing so rapidly, check out our February 12th episode.
1:33.3	And speaking of space, new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that
1:41.8	the black hole at the center of our galaxy is having
	...

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