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Key Points
- The calculated likelihood of the asteroid hitting Earth has increased since first being detected in 2024.
- While it could hit Earth on 22 December 2032, it is most likely to pass by without making contact.
- NASA is monitoring the asteroid but in April it will become too faint to observe again until mid 2028.
It now says the chance is more than 2 per cent.
Detection of Asteroid 2024 YR4
Detected in the last week of December 2024, the minor planet has been called Asteroid 2024 YR4, and if it were to hit Earth, it would do so on 22 December 2032.
“As more observations of the asteroid’s orbit are obtained, its impact probability will become better known,” it said and added that it is “possible its impact probability will continue to rise”.
“Ongoing observations from ground-based telescopes involved with the International Asteroid Warning Network will continue while the asteroid is still visible through April, after which it will be too faint to observe until around June 2028,” NASA’s statement read.
One of the highest-level asteroid warnings
How big is Asteroid 2024 YR4?
“If it was to hit [Earth], it would have the potential to wipe out something the size of a city, it could do significant damage.”
However, if there is a collision, there is potential for huge damage.
Where on Earth?
She said as the asteroid moved closer, such forecasts may be able to be refined.
At the same time, NASA has also pointed out that “several” other objects with a “probability of impacting Earth” had been on its asteroid risk list in the past before they were recategorised as having zero risk.
Planetary defence
“We could definitely still be completely blindsided,” she said.
Diverting asteroids
Davis said if an asteroid was detected early enough, “we can give it a tiny little nudge … and that’ll make it drift far enough away that it will avoid it hitting us”.
NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) space probe took place in 2022 to study the effect of an impact with near-Earth objects. Source: Getty / All About Space Magazine/Future Publishing
In 2022, NASA deflected an asteroid in what it called its DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission.
“It took a spaceship up, a satellite up, it fired something at an asteroid and tried to change its path and so this was just a practice, like a demonstration of a way that we can deflect an asteroid.”
