The potential risk of Asteroid 2024 YR4 impacting Earth in 2032 dropped to nearly zero following new observations that helped better predict the asteroid’s trajectory.
Measuring about 131 to 295 feet (40 to 90 meters) wide, asteroid 2024 YR4 could have caused local devastation if it were to collide with our planet. But recent observations, including from the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), reduced the asteroid’s impact probability to around 0.001%, after rising to more than 3% just last week — the highest impact probability ever recorded for an asteroid of this size.
The ESO shared new videos showing the asteroid’s path and possible locations on Dec. 22, 2032 in relation to Earth using new data from VLT observations collected on Feb. 20. The precise VLT observations, along with data collected by other observatories, allowed astronomers to more accurately model the asteroid’s orbit and assess its impact probability, according to a statement from the observatory.
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An asteroid’s impact probability is expected to fluctuate as astronomers gain a better understanding of its path around the sun. Following its initial discovery, continued observations have allowed astronomers to refine 2024 YR4’s trajectory. However, studying the asteroid has been particularly challenging as it is moving away from Earth and has become increasingly faint and difficult to observe.
“Because of the uncertainties, the orbit of the asteroid is like the beam of a flashlight: getting broader and broader and fuzzier in the distance,” Olivier Hainaut, an astronomer at the ESO said in the statement. “As we observe more, the beam becomes sharper and narrower. Earth was getting more illuminated by this beam: the probability of impact increased. The narrower beam is now moving away from Earth.”
Now, with a better understanding of the asteroid’s orbit, astronomers have all but ruled out an impact with Earth in 2032 — and observations from the ESO’s VLT have been crucial to gauging its impact probability. The VLT is equipped with large mirrors and heightened sensitivity, which allows astronomers to see fainter objects farther into space.
Located atop Cerro Paranal, an 8,645-foot-high (2,635 m) mountain in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the VLT is also subject to clear, dark skies, enhancing its ability to track faint objects like 2024 YR4 and other potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroids.
However, the pristine conditions under which the VLT operates may be at risk with a planned renewable energy project just 7 miles (11 kilometers) from the telescope. AES Andes, a subsidiary of the U.S. power company AES Corporation, aims to build an industrial-scale green hydrogen project called Inna. The light pollution created by the industrial facilities would have significant impacts on the quality of the skies above the Paranal Observatory, astronomers argue, and would limit the VLT’s ability to detect faint cosmic objects.
“With that brighter sky, the VLT would lose the faint 2024 YR4 about one month earlier, which would make a huge difference in our capability to predict an impact, and prepare mitigation measures to protect Earth,” Hainaut said in the statement.