NASA has given an important update on asteroid 2024 YR4.
If you’ve been keeping with up with astronomy news of late, it’s likely you’ll have heard about a ‘city-destroying’ asteroid that’s currently hurtling towards Earth.
2024 YR4 was first spotted after it set off automated asteroid warning systems in December 2024, and astronomers have been tracking it ever since.
According to NASA, the space object measures around 130 – 300 feet across (40 – 90 meters) and should it hit Earth, the force would be hundreds times the force of the Hiroshima bomb.
NASA has been tracking 2024 YR4 since December last year (Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Initially it was given just a 1.2 percent chance of colliding with Earth in December 2032, but it wasn’t long until this figure more than doubled.
In a worrying update given last week, the likelihood of hitting our planet was increased to 3.2 percent; making it the biggest threat to Earth in NASA’s history, beating the infamous ‘God of Chaos’ asteroid.
But the ‘God of Chaos’ (officially known as 99942 Apophis) has now regained its titled after 2024 YR4’s chances of hitting Earth have drastically decreased.
‘God of chaos’ asteroid’s predicted trajectory
Credits: NASA
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In an update issued by NASA yesterday (February 24), the agency said: “NASA has significantly lowered the risk of near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4 as an impact threat to Earth for the foreseeable future. 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.”
It continued: “There still remains a very small chance for asteroid 2024 YR4 to impact the Moon on Dec. 22, 2032. That probability is currently 1.7%.”
Anyone else just breathe a sigh of relief?
The asteroid has been downgraded to a 1.7 percent chance of collision (Getty Stock)
With the update in mind, the asteroid is now in NASA’s ‘normal’ category on its Torino Scale, compared to ‘meriting attention from astronomers’ when the chance was above three percent.
The NASA website says of items in category 1: “A routine discovery in which a pass near the Earth is predicted that poses no unusual level of danger.
“Current calculations show the chance of collision is extremely unlikely with no cause for public attention or public concern. New telescopic observations very likely will lead to re-assignment to Level 0.”
Scientists give chilling update on ‘city-destroying’ asteroid that may hit Earth as NASA makes emergency decision
There is a possibility that an asteroid large enough to destroy an entire city could crash into Earth in the coming years.
It is said to be as big as the Statue of Liberty, so plans are now being drawn up about how humanity can protect itself against ‘2024 YR4‘ – the life-threatening space rock initially spotted in December.
‘God of chaos’ asteroid’s predicted trajectory
Credits: NASA
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Now, scientist Dr Robin George Andrews, who’s written a book titled How to kill an asteroid, has warned of the dangers that could arise through firing rockets at it to deflect it from its path.
But first, let’s get into the emergency decision NASA has made to combat the threat. That move is to allocate an international team of astronomers access to use the James Webb Space Telescope to help determine the dimensions of the asteroid the best they can.
That way, they can attempt to work out just how much damage it would cause if it were to hit Earth, and where.
The collision is expected to happen in 2032 with NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) predicting that the chances of the asteroid colliding with our planet is one-in-43, or to be specific, 2.3 percent out of 100.
When it was first spotted, it was reported that there was a one-in-83 chance of it impacting us, so who knows if those odds will increase again?
A NASA and Space X mission saw asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, which was 530ft wide, impacted by a van-sized rocket (NASA)
Anyway, taking to Twitter, Andrews posted a lengthy, yet insightful, thread where he referred to the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which was the first-ever mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid’s motion in space through kinetic impact.
It was launched in November 2021 and impacted its targets, the asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos, in September 2022.
Andrews spoke about how successful the mission was and that it is possible to deflect asteroids although he warned ‘it doesn’t mean we can use kinetic impactors like it to deflect any asteroid whenever we want’.
Andrews said: “Nobody wants to accidentally ‘disrupt’ an asteroid, because those components can still head for Earth. As I often say, it’s like turning a cannonball into a shotgun spray.
“But we aren’t going to see it again until another Earth flyby in 2028. So much could go wrong if we try and hit it with something like DART.
Do we need to just evacuate the area where 2024 YR4 is set to crash into Earth? (Getty stock)
“It may be smaller, or larger. If it’s too big, we may not be able to deflect it with one spacecraft. We’d need several to hit it perfectly, all without catastrophically breaking it.”
He continued: “And with only a few years down the line, we could accidentally deflect it—but not enough to make it avoid the planet. Then, it still hits Earth, just somewhere else that wasn’t going to be hit.
“Maybe 2024 YR4’s odd will rise, and we will successfully deflect it in 2028 using a monster-sized spacecraft. Or maybe we’ll break an awkward taboo and instead opt to use a nuclear warhead to try to deflect it, which would provide a bigger punch to the asteroid than DART.”
Andrews added that we might just need to move out of the way of it – meaning let it hit us and evacuate the forecasted impact area.
Scientists release pictures of what ‘city destroying’ asteroid looks like as exact locations it could hit revealed
Scientists have released pictures of what the ‘city destroying’ asteroid looks like as the exact locations it could hit have been revealed.
NASA found a somewhat concerning asteroid in December last year which they’ve gone on to name 2024 YR4.
The space rock was initially spotted by an automated telescope in Chile and went to the top of the impact risk list maintained by US and European space agencies.
Scientists predict the asteroid could crash into Earth on December 22, 2032.
The asteroid has been photographed (Catalina Sky Survey/ LPL/Dr. Wierzchos/ Bryce Bolin/Twitter/@estelsiplanetes)
According to reports, it could be as big as the Statue of Liberty or Cinderella’s Castle in Walt Disney World Florida, and scientist Dr Robin George Andrews has warned even protecting ourselves from its impact could go wrong.
He explained that firing rockets at it to deflect it from its path could spark the end times.
But with a one-in-48 chance, it’s still unlikely it will actually hit home.
Still, scientists are still studying the asteroid and have now released images of what it looks like.
The snap was captured on February 7 this year by the 8.1-meter Gemini South telescope on Cerro Pachón mountain in the Chilean Andes.
At the time, the asteroid was around 37 million miles from Earth and 130 million miles from the sun, according to Space.com.
Bryce Bolin, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center astronomer who helped capture the photograph, told the outlet: “I find 2024 YT4 to be extremely exciting! Not only because of its notoriety but for the scientific potential of studying such a small asteroid in high detail.
“Only a few asteroids have been studied like this.”
Explaining how he got the image, he said: “We took 12 200-second long exposures in the Red band and tracked the motion of the asteroid to obtain these images.
There’s a one-in-48 chance of the asteroid striking Earth (Getty Images)
“The observations were difficult for three reasons. Firstly, the asteroid was faint, requiring the use of large telescopes to observe.”
This is because the 2024 YR4 was visible when the moon was 70 per cent illuminated, meaning there was other background light in the sky and more difficult to detect the asteroid.
Secondly, the asteroid was moving 0.26 arceseconds per minute, which meant Bolin and the team had to carefully track it with Gemini South.
It isn’t the first time space boffins have captured a pic of the asteroid either, though NASA last published a glimpse of on December 27 last year.
The International Asteroid Warning Network is also continuing to monitor and track the asteroid to determine its risk, as it will be visible throughout April.
However, after that, it will be ‘too faint to observe’ up until June 2028.
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