Astronomers recently identified an asteroid that has a small chance of striking Earth on December 22, 2032. The space rock, known as 2024 YR4, is about 130 feet to about 300 feet in diameter—making it about as big as a football field. So far, scientists say there is no cause for concern yet, but they will keep a close eye on it to rule out any dangers.
The asteroid was discovered by the NASA-sponsored Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), an asteroid impact early warning system. When 2024 YR4 was first spotted, it had an impact probability of 1.2%, which was then recently updated by the European Space Agency to 2.2%. Due to its orbit, 2024 YR4 will be observable through April, and then will fade out of view until 2028, providing vital windows for astronomers to learn more about it.
In the Torino scale, which categorizes the impact hazard of near-Earth objects on a scale from 0 to 10, 2024 YR4 is ranked as a 3, which means “a close encounter that warrants attention from astronomers and the public,” especially since the encounter is less than a decade a way. Given the asteroid is larger than 50 meters (164 feet) and has an impact probability higher than 1% at a point sometime within the next 50 years, two UN-endorsed asteroid reaction groups have been activated: the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), led by NASA, and the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG), chaired by ESA, which will continue to monitor the situation.
“Asteroid 2024 YR4 has an almost 99% chance of safely passing Earth on 22 December 2032, but a possible impact cannot yet be entirely ruled out,” says the ESA, adding that it’s not yet possible to determine exactly where it could hit. However, NASA has indicated that impact would occur somewhere along a risk corridor that includes parts of the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Arabian Sea, and South Asia. While the asteroid is not nearly as big as the one that killed the dinosaurs, it could cause damages to an area with a radius of several miles.
“The worldwide community is watching this and taking notice that it’s reached this threshold,” Kelly Fast, the acting planetary defense officer for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, told NPR. “We do want to keep an eye on it. We do take it seriously, but we want to put it in perspective … There’s still a very low probability that it would even impact the Earth at all.”
To further ease the public’s concerns, ESA notes that we’ve only learned about close encounters like that of 2024 YR4 now that mankind has tools to keep track of them. They say, “As our asteroid survey technology improves, we are likely to detect an increasing number of objects passing close to Earth that we would have missed in the past.” The hope now is that the impact probability will fall to zero over time.
Sources: Asteroid 2024 YR4 reaches level 3 on the Torino Scale; ESA actively monitoring near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4; Asteroid 2024 YR4 – latest updates; Astronomers are tracking an asteroid that could hit Earth in 2032; Torino Impact Hazard Scale
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