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A massive asteroid could slam into Earth – but you’ll have to wait a while for it to arrive.
Known as Asteroid 2024 YR4, the nearly 200-foot large space rock could hit just before Christmas of 2032, researchers say.
Discovered last Christmas by Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey, the asteroid is currently the only Near-Earth Object that has been placed at a level three on Torino impact hazard scale, giving it the highest probability of impact of any other large objects being tracked by NASA and other space agencies. The scale categorizes potential Earth impact events.
This marks “one of the highest probabilities of an impact from a significantly sized rock ever,” David Rankin, from the Catalina Sky Survey, wrote on BlueSky.
Although, more observation is needed to understand how close 2024 YR4 could come to Earth.
“Recently-discovered asteroid 2024 YR4 may make a very close approach to Earth in eight years,” said Tony Dunn, an amateur astronomer who shared a visualization of the asteroid on X (formerly Twitter).
“It is thought to be 40-100 meters wide. Uncertainty is still high and more observations are needed to confirm this.”
Dunn’s animation of the asteroid shows it skimming Earth at an altitude of 301 miles, with its trajectory altered by the planet’s gravitational pull.
This is less than half the distance of most low-Earth orbit satellites, suggesting that it could even be pulled into Earth’s atmosphere at that altitude.
The “risk corridor” for impact stretches from South America, across central Africa, and up towards India and South-East Asia. But, this could shift as new data emerges.
Just how devastating the impact would potentially be depends not only on the size of the asteroid, but also its composition. By comparison, the asteroid that ended the age of the dinosaur is estimated to be between six and nine miles wide.
However, astronomers say the odds of a collision are around 1-in-83.
“We are not worried at all, because of this 99 percent chance it will miss,” Paul Chodas, director of NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, told The Associated Press. “But it deserves attention.”
2024 YR4 is currently hurdling through space some 27 million miles from Earth, traveling at a velocity of 13.5 km/s, according to NASA’s Eyes on Asteroid.