By Richard Tew/Contributing writer
While most people were enjoying Christmas Day last year, NASA was being alerted to a relatively small asteroid now known as ” Asteroid 2024 YR4.” The light given off of the asteroid caught the attention of powerful telescopes trained on outer space, tasked with finding celestial bodies which have the possibility of crossing earth’s orbit some time in the future. Asteroid 2024 YR4 has quickly become a topic of discussion in the scientific community since its discovery.
The approximately 130-300-foot-wide “Near-Earth asteroid” was recently given a 3.1 percent chance of impacting earth December 22, 2032, seven short years away. It was upgraded from 1 percent chance back on January 31, of this year.
The asteroid was discovered thanks to the NASA-funded “Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS)” located in Rio Hurtado, Chile by one of several ATLAS telescopes. ATLAS uses a network of powerful land-based telescopes to search for such masses which hurtle through space largely uninterrupted at tens of thousands of milers-per-hour.
According to NASA updates online, researchers say should 2024 YR4 make impact with earth, it could cause major damage to any city it might impact.
“This object is of particular interest for planetary defense for two reasons: 1) it is large enough to cause localized damage in the unlikely event that it should impact Earth, and 2) while 2024 YR4 has a very small chance of Earth impact in 2032, it has surpassed the 1% impact probability threshold to warrant formal notification of the object to other U.S. government agencies involved in planetary defense as well as to the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group and to the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs per the International Asteroid Warning Network’s notification charter.”
NASA and other research agencies will keep a close eye on 2024 YR4 and upgrade or downgrade its potential for impact with earth.
A NASA press release on 2024 YR4 said:
“As more observations of the asteroid’s orbit are obtained, its impact probability will become better known. It is possible that 2024 YR4 will be ruled out as an impact hazard, as has happened with many other objects that have previously appeared on the NASA JPL asteroid risk list. It is also possible its impact probability will continue to rise.”
An FAQ page on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL) Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) provides a rough idea of where, in extremely-unlikely event of an impact could occur:
“In the unlikely event that 2024 YR4 is on an impact trajectory, the impact would occur somewhere along a risk corridor which extends across the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Arabian Sea, and South Asia.”
CNEOS online reports say should 2024 YR4 impact the earth (Now some 30 million miles away), it would be traveling at around 38,000 miles-per-hour. According to online reports, it could yield enough explosive force to destroy a city.
Right now 2024 YR4 is being closely monitored and studied to help determine it’s actual size, trajectory and likelihood of impacting earth. To learn more visit: https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov.
Photo cutline: Asteroid “2024 YR4” is being tracked by NASA researchers after being discovered just after Christmas 2024. It was recently upgraded to a 3.1 percent chance of an impact with earth on December 22, 2032. Photo credit NASA.
