Asteroid 2024 yr4, Measuring about 40 to 100 meters wide, it will pass very close to Earth in December 2032 – and could even hit the planet. Due to its size, speed and the possibility of impacting, the Internet gave it the nickname “the city destroyer.”
Major space agencies, such as the European Space Agencyestimate that there is a 2 percent possibility that 2024 yr4 will hit the ground, although this risky figure will be updated because scientists learn more about the asteroid path. Although it is much more likely the Asteroid I will miss the ground, already identified places that could be hit by a collision.
The destructive potential of 2024 yr4 depends on its composition, speed and mass. Because the asteroid is still very far away, these features can only be estimated, and the consequences of a strike are therefore also somewhat vague predictions at this stage. Currently, astronomers believe that 2024 YR4 would create an air button or mid-air explosive impact that would be worth nearly 8 million tonnes of TNT, or 500 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. This explosion would affect about 50 kilometer radio around the effect.
For the location of the collision, some experts, such as David Rankin, an engineer with NASA Catherine Sky Survey Project, outlined a “risky corridor.” Along the asteroid’s current path, and if the 2 percent probability becomes a reality, the asteroid must fall somewhere in a band of territory extending from northern South America, across the Pacific, to the South Asia, the Arab Sea and Africa. Countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador would risk.
The threat posed by asteroids and comets that could possibly strike the ground is measured on the 11-point Turin scale: The higher the score, the greater the risk that a traveling space object will affect the Earth and cause large amounts of destruction. The 2024 YR4 asteroid is current ranked at Level 3, meaning it is large enough and will pass close enough to deserve to be carefully checked. However, most international agencies are confident that the risky level will decrease over time to zero, as the asteroid trajectory becomes clearer. Initially, the probability of effect was 1.2 percent. It was then adjusted up to 2.3 percent, before the most recent estimate reduced the risk to 2 percent.
This is not the first time that such alert is raised, nor 2024 YR4 is the most risky space object to be monitored. The asteroid ApophisWhich was discovered in 2004, sometimes gained higher than 2024 YR4 both on the Turin Scale and collision probability. Shortly after it was discovered, it received a 2.7 percent chance of hitting the ground. However, after a few months and with better observations, scientists adjusted their calculations to more realistic values. Now, although it will pass very close to the ground in 2029, the chances of collision are zero.
In response to 2024 YR4, the UN activated an emergency protocol for the protection of the planet. For the moment, considering that the asteroid is on the level 3 of the Turin Scale, this is limited to continuous monitoring to understand the movements of the asteroid.
Measures also develop to protect the land from asteroids with destructive potential. These include kinetic strikes, where rockets are sent into space to collide with asteroids, to turn them off from a collision road with the ground. 2023 Dart Mission by NASA proved that such strikes can be launched and that they can move spatial objects, trying this technique on a harmless asteroid called Dimorphos.
This story originally appeared in Wired in Spanish and was translated from Spanish.
