The chances of asteroid 2024 YR4 striking Earth in 2032 have reduced from the previously thought 3.1 per cent to nearly zero per cent, NASA said. The space agency revealed that the asteroid has a 0.0017 per cent chance of hitting Earth in December 2032. The European Space Agency has also given a similar risk assessment of 0.002 per cent.
According to NASA, there is a 99.9983 per cent chance that the asteroid will pass Earth safely in seven years, which is equivalent to a 1 in 59,000 risk of collision. Although the new data indicated that the asteroid had a 1.7 per cent probability of hitting the moon, Earth is not at risk from such slight odds of impact.
“When first discovered, asteroid 2024 YR4 had a very small, but notable chance of impacting our planet in 2032,” NASA shared on Monday.
It added, “As observations of the asteroid continued to be submitted to the Minor Planet Center, experts at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’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.”
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California has been tracking the asteroid, which passes Earth every four years. Several telescopes are being used to study the space rock to determine its size and orbit, which will probably show a lower probability of a 2032 impact than what the data now indicates.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 was first reported on December 27, 2024, to the Minor Planet Centre – an official body for observing and reporting on small planets.
The asteroid, estimated to be about 130 to 300 feet wide, is big enough to potentially wipe out a city. It first caught astronomers’ attention when it rose on the NASA automated Sentry risk list on December 31, 2024. The Sentry list includes any known near-Earth asteroids that have a non-zero probability of impacting Earth in the future.
There have been several objects in the past that have risen on the risk list and eventually dropped off as more data came in.