We all know how an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. So whenever one of these lumps of space rocks gets anywhere near us, it’s easy to panic.
And there’s a 1.3% chance of exactly this happening.
A newly discovered asteroid, 2024 YR4, may strike Earth in December 22, 2032, according to Nasa. Just in time for Christmas.
The space rock is between 130 feet and 330 feet long, so about the size of Big Ben. It’s the only large asteroid with an impact probability above 1%.
The International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) issued a Potential Impact Warning Notification over 2024 YR4 yesterday.
Astronomers say YR4 could come within around 66,000 miles of Earth. But when the unpredictability of orbits is considered, Nasa says it could be a direct hit.
Impact locations include the eastern Pacific, northern South America, into Africa and south Asia, according to the network’s estimates.
YR4 smashing into the planet would cause a ‘severe blast’, the IAWN warning says.
Scary as that sounds, it wouldn’t be anything close to a mass extinction.
Though, if it were to crash into a city, it would easily be wiped off the map. Anywhere in the ocean could cause tsunamis to ripple out, experts previously told Metro.
The largest-ever impact event in recorded history was Tunguska, which saw a 130-foot asteroid explode in the skies of remote Siberia in 1908.
‘The asteroid will be observable, and information will be updated, through early April 2025 and then again starting in June 2028 when the asteroid will return to the vicinity of Earth,’ the alert added.
Space agencies have sounded the alarm – albeit, a pretty quiet alarm. The European Space Agency (ECA) says YR4 is now top of its asteroid risk list.
On the Torino Scale, a tool for categorising potential Earth impact events, YR4 is a solid three. This means it’s a yellow warning that tells public officials and astronomers they should keep this on their radars.
While a three out of 10 doesn’t sound like too much, this is the second-highest rating ever given to an asteroid.
Only Apophis, an asteroid about 1,500 feet wide, reached a four in 2004. But astronomers quickly realised that the rock has next to no chance of striking us in the coming century.
But YR4’s threat level will inevitably change over time, Nasa stresses, as it gets close enough for scientists to observe it.
Richard Binzel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who created the Torino scales, says it’ll likely have a rating of one or zero by the time its close shave with Earth happens.
Asteroid hunter David Rankin added to Space.com that as much as the asteroid has a 1-in-83 chance of colliding with us, there’s no need to panic.
‘People should absolutely not worry about this yet,’ he stressed.
‘It is just important to keep in mind that its orbit is still too uncertain to know if it will hit, and right now, the most likely outcome is a miss.’
The IAWN warning was issued the same day the UK Space Agency announced it had joined the IAWN to boost Britain’s planetary defence. Good timing, we suppose.
As you read this, four massive telescopes operated by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, are scanning the skies for what astronomers call ‘near-Earth objects’.
This system discovered YR4 on December 27 as the rock passed us. It’s zipping away before eventually looping back around as it orbits the Sun.
Scientists at the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies spent weeks simulating the object’s orbital path.
They figured out the rough size by looking at how much sunlight the asteroid reflects.
Earth has a few things in its tool belt if the unlikely event of an asteroid hurtling towards us happens.
Nuclear weapons could be used to destroy it, or a spacecraft thrown hard enough at it could, at the very least, gently nudge the rock away.
One plan, for example, involves shooting a mega pulse of radiation from a nuclear blast at an asteroid to send it packing.
Or space officials play the long game by deploying a ‘gravity tractor’ – a spacecraft – that would fly alongside an asteroid and tug on the rock to change its course.
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