The Risk of Asteroid 'YR4 2024' Colliding with Earth Has Increased

Astronomers have been studying an asteroid that will approach Earth in less than eight years since December 2024, and a recent study has shown that the likelihood of it colliding with Earth is increasing. According to the latest data released by the European Space Agency (ESA), there is a 2.2% chance that the asteroid named 'YR4 2024' will collide with Earth on December 22, 2032. Just a week ago, the probability of this celestial body colliding with Earth was estimated at only 1.2%. However, astronomers expect that the likelihood of this asteroid colliding will first increase and then decrease, following the pattern of other near-Earth asteroids as data is completed. The estimated size of this asteroid is between 40 to 90 meters, comparable to a large building, and its potential impact sites include areas in the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, northern Africa, the Arabian Sea, and southern Asia. The most famous and destructive asteroid impact identified occurred 66 million years ago when a 10-kilometer-long asteroid struck Earth, leading to the extinction of all dinosaurs and 75% of all living species on Earth, resulting in a long winter worldwide. However, the 'YR4 2024' asteroid is much smaller and will not lead to such a catastrophe, but impacts from asteroids of this size are not unprecedented even in contemporary history. In 1908, a 30-meter-wide asteroid struck the Tunguska River in a remote forest in Siberia, uprooting at least 80 million trees and destroying a forest area of 2,150 square kilometers. In 2013, a 20-meter-wide asteroid entered the Earth's atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia, and exploded before reaching the ground, releasing energy 20 to 30 times that of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Following this incident, over seven thousand buildings were damaged, and more than a thousand people were injured. Neither of these recent cases had been identified before the asteroid impacts, but now scientists say they are closely monitoring 'YR4 2024'. This asteroid is currently over 45 million kilometers away from Earth and is moving further away over time. It will be visible until mid-April and will then continue its orbit around the Sun, disappearing until it returns near Earth in 2028. In the meantime, astronomers will have ample opportunity to analyze their observations and identify the precise trajectory of this asteroid. Juan Luis Cano, an aerospace engineer at the 'Near-Earth Object Coordination Center' at ESA, told the New York Times that 'people should not be worried at this stage.' NASA successfully diverted an asteroid from its path using a spacecraft in a test operation in 2022. Andrew Ryukin, an astronomer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory who led that test mission for NASA, told the Associated Press that the same method could be used if there is a risk of this asteroid colliding with Earth.