NASA gives major update on chances of YR4 'city killer' asteroid hitting Earth
After analyzing asteroid 2024 YR4 and its path, NASA scientists determined the possibility that the rock will hit Earth in seven years' time is just one in 59,000
NASA has issued a major update on the huge "city killer" asteroid hurtling in the direction of Earth.
Alarmingly, asteroid 2024 YR4 was estimated to have a one in 32 (3.1 per cent) chance of hitting our planet on December 22, 2032, the highest probability recorded in over two decades. The high odds led a team of UN-backed experts to start drawing contingency plans as to how to respond to the space object.
But now, the odds have changed as scientists analysed the rock - and they're much thinner. NASA now estimates that the space rock has a 0.0017 per cent chance chance of hitting Earth in December 2032.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has a similar risk assessment of 0.002 per cent. According to NASA, that means the possibility of impact with Earth is one in 59,000 - with a 99.9983 per cent chance that the asteroid will safely zip by Earth without causing any damage in seven years' time.
NASA said: "When first discovered, asteroid 2024 YR4 had a very small, but notable chance of impacting our planet in 2032. As observations of the asteroid continued to be submitted to the Minor Planet Center, experts at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL's) Center for Near-Earth Object Studies were able to calculate more precise models of the asteroid's trajectory and now have found there is no significant potential for this asteroid to impact our planet for the next century.
"The latest observations have further reduced the uncertainty of its future trajectory, and the range of possible locations the asteroid could be on Dec. 22, 2032, has moved farther away from the Earth." There is still a very small chance - 1.7 per cent - that the asteroid will impact the Moon on that day, NASA added. The US government agency said it will continue to observe asteroid 2024 YR4 to learn further insights about its size for scientific purposes.
It continued: "While this asteroid no longer poses a significant impact hazard to Earth, 2024 YR4 provided an invaluable opportunity for experts at NASA and its partner institutions to test planetary defence science and notification processes." Asteroid 2024 YR4, detected by telescopes on December 27 last year, is estimated to be 40m to 90m wide. It is comparable to a large building and, it were to collide with Earth, it could cause local devastation.
Astronomer Richard Binzel, the inventor of the Torino Scale - a method for categorising the impact hazard associated with near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as asteroids and comets - said: "I'm pleasantly surprised that we could reduce the probability numbers so quickly. It would not have done anyone any good to have this probability hang around for a long time because it was going to go to zero.
"The reason I say it was going to go to zero is at the end of the day, the probability is either zero and it misses you, or it's one and it hits you. Any number in between is just the space of your uncertainty. We didn't want us to have to sit in that time and space of uncertainty for months and months."