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Ready or not, 2024 YR4 is coming to an orbit near you.
Animated visuals present the catastrophic consequences of a potential collision with the “city-killer” asteroid YR4 2024, while astronomers highlight the moon’s susceptibility to being affected as well.
According to Dr. David Rankin, operations manager at the University of Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey, the asteroid has approximately a 2% probability of impacting Earth. In a widely shared post on Blue Sky Social, he shared a simulation illustrating the potential effects of the asteroid’s impact.
Dr. Rankin’s calculations reveal that the 2024 YR4, comparable in size to the Leaning Tower Of Pisa, poses a one in 48 chance of colliding with Earth on December 22, 2032.
His accompanying line graph video shows the precise collision source that could lead to Armageddon. If it does hit home, the dangerous space rock could release an energy blast equivalent to 8 megatons of TNT, capable of obliterating an area the size of Washington, D.C, SWNS reported.
A dramatic YouTube simulation created by 3D animation wizard Alvaro Gracia Montoya shows a massive space rock laying waste to a metropolis like something out of a Roland Emmerich disaster flick.
The one silver lining is that Dr. Rankin’s forecast is slightly less dire than current estimates, which assert that YR4 has a 2.3 percent chance of hitting our planet, putting it at the top of NASA’s list of interstellar threats.
The moon, unfortunately, could also be in the asteroid’s path; Rankin calculated that it has a 0.3% chance of sustaining a deep impact.
Unlike the Earth, our natural satellite lacks an atmosphere to shield it, so YR4 would hit at around 30,000 miles per hour, according to the New Scientist.
This would potentially generate an explosion 343 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb, and leave a blast crater measuring between 1,640 to 6,500 feet across.
Fortunately, our planet would emerge from a potential lunar crash-landing relatively unscathed.
“There is the possibility this would eject some material back out that could hit the Earth, but I highly doubt it would cause any major threat,” assured Rankin.
Although he noted that the collision “would likely be very visible from Earth,” per Live Science.
If YR4 is on a collision course with Earth, on the other hand, we might not be able to stop it.
In an ominous series of X posts earlier this week, UK volcanologist Robin George Andrews noted there might not be enough time to redirect it using DART (the Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft — which was successfully used to knock the 580-foot-wide asteroid Dimorphos off course in 2022.
“With only a few years down the line, we could accidentally deflect it — but not enough to make it avoid the planet,” he theorized. “Then, it still hits Earth, just somewhere else that wasn’t going to be hit.”
NASA recently enlisted the aid of the James Webb telescope — the planet’s most powerful — to analyze 2024 YR4 and determine the level of damage it would cause if it did strike the planet
The instrument would help astronomers glean a more accurate measurement of the rock’s size by using its infrared instruments to study the heat emitted by it.
Fortunately, Dr. Rankin assures us that we need not fear Ragna-rock just yet.
“As of now, there is still a 97.9% chance of a miss with respect to Earth,” he said. “This asteroid is nothing to lose sleep over.”