Astronomers, scientists reveal chances of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth
Terrifying animations reveal the catastrophic impact asteroid YR4 2024 would have if it hit Earth, as experts warn the moon may also be at risk.
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Ready or not, 2024 YR4 is coming to an orbit near you.
Chilling animations depict the apocalyptic impact that “city-killer” asteroid YR4 2024 could have if it did hit Earth — while astronomers warn that the moon could be in the line of fire as well.
“Showing just over ~2 per cent impact probability on Earth,” Dr David Rankin, operations manager of the University of Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey, wrote in a viral post on Blue Sky Social, alongside a video simulation of the rock’s potential impact.
He specifically calculated that 2024 YR4 — which is around the size of the Leaning Tower of Pisa — would have around a one in 48 chance of striking the Earth on December 22, 2032.
His accompanying line graph video shows the precise collision source that could lead to Armageddon. If it does hit home, the dangerous space rock could release an energy blast equivalent to 8 megatons of TNT, capable of obliterating an area the size of Washington, DC, SWNS reported.
A dramatic YouTube simulation created by 3D animation wizard Alvaro Gracia Montoya shows a massive space rock laying waste to a metropolis like something out of a Roland Emmerich disaster flick.
The one silver lining is that Dr. Rankin’s forecast is slightly less dire than current estimates, which assert that YR4 has a 2.3 per cent chance of hitting our planet, putting it at the top of NASA’s list of interstellar threats.
The moon, unfortunately, could also be in the asteroid’s path; Rankin calculated that it has a 0.3 per cent chance of sustaining a deep impact.
Unlike the Earth, our natural satellite lacks an atmosphere to shield it, so YR4 would hit at around 48,280 km per hour, according to the New Scientist.
This would potentially generate an explosion 343 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb and leave a blast crater measuring between 499 metres to 1981 metres across.
Fortunately, our planet would emerge from a potential lunar crash-landing relatively unscathed.
“There is the possibility this would eject some material back out that could hit the Earth, but I highly doubt it would cause any major threat,” Dr Rankin said.
Although he noted that the collision “would likely be very visible from Earth,” per Live Science.
EXPERT’S WARNING OVER NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID
What a rock-block.
An award-winning UK scientist warns that it might be too late to deflect the “city killer” asteroid that’s headed toward Earth.
Deflection efforts “might not be able to stop 2024 YR4,” cautioned Robin George Andrews, a London volcanologist and author, in a chilling X post blowing up online.
Discovered hurtling through our galaxy in December 2024, the building-size space rock is reportedly at the top of NASA’s watch list when it comes to deep space dangers, boasting a 1 in 43 chance of striking Earth in 2032.
And while the odds of Armageddon might seem slim, Andrews believes that we’re in big trouble if the intergalactic gravel is indeed on a collision course with our planet.
The scientist threw cold water on the defence potential of the DART (the Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft, which was successfully used to knock the 580-foot-wide asteroid Dimorphos off course in 2022.
This cosmic kamikaze mission reportedly shortened its orbit by more than half an hour, potentially paving the way for humans to alter the trajectory of other dangerous cosmic bodies.
While Andrews acknowledged that this celestial crash test “worked wonders,” he warned that this doesn’t mean we can “deflect any asteroid whenever we want.”
“So much could go wrong if we try and hit it with something like DART,” said the researcher.
He noted that many asteroids are loose rubble piles of sand, dirt and boulders tethered tenuously together by gravity. When hit, they could fragment and potentially send interstellar shrapnel hurtling toward Earth — a phenomenon Andrews analogised to “turning a cannonball into a shotgun spray.”
Even if the strike was successful, there might not be enough time to significantly alter the asteroid’s path, warned the scientist. He noted that YR4 is arriving in just eight years, while it takes “10 years or more to build, plan and execute an asteroid deflection mission.”
“This is because the deflection a kinetic impactor can give an Earthbound asteroid would be tiny,” he said, noting that DART only altered Dimorphos’ velocity by several millimetres.
“Only over time does the shifted orbit add up enough to ensure it’ll miss Earth.”
“With only a few years down the line, we could accidentally deflect it — but not enough to make it avoid the planet,” Andrews theorised.
“Then, it still hits Earth, just somewhere else that wasn’t going to be hit.”
This outcome could be catastrophic, given that a strike by YR4 would allegedly cause roughly the same amount of damage as the Tunguska event, which laid waste to around 80 million trees in Siberia in 1908, according to Space.com.
Despite the potential danger, Andrews assured the public that 2024 YR4 will “probably miss Earth.”
“But if it doesn’t, we have to be wary of trying to save the world but accidentally making the problem worse,” he said. “Maybe we’ll just have to get out of the asteroid’s way this time.”
NASA recently enlisted the aid of the James Webb telescope — the planet’s most powerful — to study 2024 YR4 and gauge how much damage it would cause if it did strike the Earth.
The instrument would help astronomers glean a more accurate measurement of the rock’s size by using its infra-red instruments to study the heat emitted by it.
This data will in turn be “used by ESA [the European Space Agency], NASA, and other organisations to more confidently assess the hazard and determine any necessary response,” the ESA wrote.
This story was originally published on The New York Post.
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Originally published as Astronomers, scientists reveal chances of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth