A newly discovered asteroid has a 1.2% chance of hitting Earth in 2032, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced today, as it coordinates efforts to track the asteroid and predict its path more accurately.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 was discovered last December, thanks to a specialized risk detection telescope located in Chile. It is estimated to be between 40 and 100 meters in size and could strike Earth on December 22, 2032, according to automated warning systems.
“An asteroid of this size hits Earth on average every few thousand years and can cause significant damage to a localized area,” said ESA. As of now, the probability of the asteroid impacting Earth is 1.2%, based on ESA’s calculations, which align with those of NASA’s special agency that deals with such celestial bodies. The asteroid is classified as Level 3 on the Torino scale, developed by NASA, which rates the likelihood of a celestial body colliding with Earth. The scale ranges from 0 (no risk) to 10 (complete catastrophe).
ESA considers it highly likely that new observations of the asteroid will lead to a reassessment of the risk level to 0. “It’s important to remember that the probability of an impact starts high but quickly drops to zero with additional observations,” the agency explained.
As a member of the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), ESA will coordinate future observations to more accurately assess the risk of an impact. For this purpose, it will use the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory located in Chile. However, this may prove challenging as the orbit of 2024 YR4 will take it far from Earth in the coming months. Therefore, there is a possibility that observations may not be sufficient to “rule out any possibility of an impact” in 2032.
In this case, scientists and the global community will have to wait until 2028, when the asteroid will be back on its observation path from Earth.