SCIENTISTS do not have time to deflect the asteroid a size of a football pitch that is hurtling towards Earth, an expert has warned.
It comes as the odds of the Earth-threatening space rock colliding with our planet have shortened to a 1-in-43 chance.
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Scientists say the enormous rock dubbed 2024 YR4 is between 40 and 100 metres wide and would wipe out humanity if it hits.
The asteroid has been rated as the highest risk ever recorded by the European Space Agency (ESA).
Projections show its path could cross over with Earth’s orbit around Christmas time in 2032 – specifically 5:25 am on Wednesday, December 22.
With rising concerns about the chances of impact, researchers have suggested various deflection methods including solar lasers, nuclear bombs and kinetic impactors.
The latter is where scientists launch a spacecraft into an asteroid to knock it off its orbit.
This is the most likely option but scientists have already run out of time to use it against 2024YR4, Dr Andrews claims.
He said on X: “I’ve often [been] told you need 10 years or more to build, plan and execute an asteroid deflection mission.
“Now let’s look at 2024 YR4. We have less than eight years to potentially deal with it, if needed.
“I’m not saying a kinetic impactor mission, or missions, couldn’t work.
“But we don’t have much time, and we don’t have enough info about this rapidly fading asteroid to properly inform our planetary defense decisions yet.”
Even if we did have time, he noted that the kinetic impactor method may not work.
In fact, he warned that the technique used two years ago in NASA‘s DART mission could be like “turning a cannonball into a shotgun spray,” increasing the possible devastation on Earth.
The volcanologist and writer explained: “I’m seeing a lot of people claim that, if it is going to impact Earth in 2032, we can use a DART-like spacecraft to ram it out of the way.
“Well, not necessarily. The DART mission was fab, but might not be able to stop 2024 YR4.”
In 2022, Nasa’s DART spacecraft was deliberately driven into the side of Dimorphos – a small asteroid “moonlet”.
The mission was mainly to test Nasa’s planet defence systems, and was deemed a big success.
Dr Andrews said: “As DART smashed into the asteroid, lots of debris flew back off the asteroid, acting like a rocket jet and giving it more of a push.”
But he warned that it does not prove the method can be used for all kinds of asteroid deflection.
He said: “Asteroids like Dimorphos, and smaller, tend to be rubble piles: not solid single rocks, but boulders weakly bound by their own gravity.
“Hitting them just right can produce that debris-like thrust effect, but if you hit them too hard, you’ll shatter them.
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“Nobody wants to accidentally ‘disrupt’ an asteroid, because those components can still head for Earth… it’s like turning a cannonball into a shotgun spray.”
While 2024YR4 is smaller than Dimorphos, it will not pass Earth again until 2028, giving scientists less than four years to decide how and when to take action.
“So much could go wrong if we try and hit it with something like DART,” Dr Andrews warned.
If the asteroid comes back around and is larger than scientists originally thought, one spacecraft may not be enough to deflect it far enough to avoid hitting Earth.
GOING NUCLEAR
While it could be deflected with a “monster-sized spacecraft” Dr Andrews appeared to urge researchers not to write off the suggestion of detonating a nuclear bomb near or in the asteroid.
He suggested that scientists may “break an awkward taboo” of using a nuclear weapon against 2024YR4 “which would provide a bigger punch than DART”.
The European Union-funded NEO Shield consortium said last week that the use of a nuclear bomb would be a last resort.
While the idea of sending a nuclear weapon into space to stop a potentially deadly asteroid sounds like fiction thanks to movies like Armageddon, it is one of the options available to scientists.
A carefully executed explosion close to the surface of the asteroid would be carried out in the hope that the rock shatters into smaller fragments that would burn up in the atmosphere.
However, larger chunks could still be big enough to survive the atmosphere and rain down on a larger area of Earth.
Another nuclear option would be to detonate the nuclear weapon further away from the asteroid with the idea that the explosion would damage the surface of the rock and knock it off course.
If carried out correctly, there would be minimal damage to the asteroid, and therefore no risk of chunks of space rock falling to Earth.
But detonating a nuclear weapon in space is not only tricky and risky but also strictly against UN treaties.
Ian Carnelli, a planetary defence expert at the ESA told The Telegraph: “Triggering an explosion a certain distance away from an asteroid is extremely complex and nobody would agree to test it before a real threat is identified so you really would have a total lack of knowledge of how to do it.”
Several other options have been floated by scientists, including laser ablation and a MADMEN swarm of numerous spacecraft drilling into the rock and removing material to alter its mass and trajectory.
Astronomer Dr David Whitehouse first noted the chances of a disastrous collision increasing as he said the asteroid is “unacceptable to ignore”.
An impact would unleash energy hundreds of times greater than that of the Hiroshima bomb with a blinding flash as shock waves that would flatten anything for miles.
One expert called it a potential ‘city-killer’ telling CBS that “if you put it over Paris or London or New York, you basically wipe out the whole city and some of the environs.”
If the asteroid explodes near the coastline, a life-threatening tsunami could occur.
As fears of impact increase, an international team of astronomers has been granted use of the iconic James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) so they can determine how much damage the asteroid may cause.
Astronomers are set to use the JWST in March to measure the exact size of 2024 YR4 and make any final calculations around its orbit.
The JWST, used by both the ESA and NASA, will take images of 2024 YR4 from its position a million miles away from Earth.
A second round of observations will also take place in May to determine how it has moved within a few months.
At the moment, scientists believe the asteroid could be up to 300ft wide – the same size as New York‘s Statue of Liberty or London‘s Big Ben.
While scientists attempt to assure people that asteroid 2024 YR4 will most likely miss Earth, Dr Andrews warns that we must be serious about the methods we use if it doesn’t.
“We have to be wary of trying to save the world but accidentally making the problem worse,” he warned.
The Space Missing Planning Advisory Group, chaired by the ESA, has discussed the latest observations of 2024 YR4 at a meeting in Vienna.
They have given astronomers more time to determine their estimate of the asteroid’s orbit.
If the group believes there is a risk of a hit, it will make official recommendations to the United Nations and discuss options for a “spacecraft-based response to the potential hazard.”
But NASA has said the event is “unlikely” saying they expect it will pass Earth by a few thousand miles.
“It is important to remember that an asteroid’s impact probability often rises at first before quickly dropping to zero after additional observations,” ESA noted.
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