Asteroid has 3.1% chance of hitting Earth in Dec. 2032 & destroying entire city

An asteroid measuring an estimated 40m to 90m wide has been forecast to have a 3.1 per cent chance of hitting Earth in 2032, according to data released by NASA on Feb. 18.

That translates to odds of one in 32.

The impact from such a space rock could potentially level a city.

It has since been labelled the most threatening space rock recorded by modern forecasting.

The James Webb Space Telescope is set to track the space object in March 2025.

Estimated impact radius

Known as 2024 YR4, the asteroid was first detected on Dec. 27, 2024, by the El Sauce Observatory in Chile.

Astronomers estimated its size to be 40m to 90m wide, based on its brightness.

Nine countries have been named to be at the greatest risk of the asteroid potentially touching down there: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador.

The impact is predicted to be as destructive as eight million tons of explosives and would damage everything within a 30-mile (48.2km) radius.

Astronomers also foresee the asteroid creating a mid-air explosion as it enters the atmosphere.

Nasa’s latest calculations estimate a potential Earth impact date of Dec. 22, 2032.

Nowhere as big as asteroid that apparently took out dinosaurs

The 2024 YR4 asteroid is classified as a “city killer”, which makes it much smaller than the estimated 10km-wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, which caused a global catastrophe.

The devastation this latest asteroid threat causes comes from its velocity, as it could hit Earth at 40,000 miles per hour (64,400km/h).

Probability could go down

The International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), a worldwide planetary defence collaboration, initially issued a warning memo on Jan. 29 after the impact probability had crossed 1 per cent mark.

The figure has fluctuated since then but has continued upwards.

The last time an asteroid of greater than 30m in size posed such a significant risk was Apophis in 2004.

It had a 2.7 per cent chance of striking Earth in 2029 at one point.

But the possibility was later ruled out by additional observations, which could also happen for this latest asteroid discovered to be hurtling towards Earth.

What scientists are saying

Famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson took to X (formerly Twitter) on Feb. 15 to weigh in on the news.

He wrote: "At the moment, mansion-sized Asteroid 2024-YR4 has a one-in-fifty chance of hitting Earth in the next eight years."

“Now might be a bad time to reduce spending on Science. Just sayin.”

Bruce Betts, the chief scientist at non-profit Planetary Society, told AFP that the Webb telescope, the most powerful space observatory, is able to spot the asteroid’s orbit, which is currently headed towards Jupiter.

Its next close approach will be some time in 2028.

Solutions?

The good news, experts said, is that there is time to prepare for the event, AFP also reported.

A spacecraft could be sent to push the asteroid off-course to avoid Earth.

The technology to do that was successfully demonstrated in Nasa’s 2022 DART mission, which altered the course of a non-threatening asteroid.

Top photo via Neil deGrasse Tyson X