Impact ‘city-killer’ asteroid would have on Earth
A chilling new animation shows in detail what would happen to the Earth of a ‘city-killer’ asteroid was to strike the planet.
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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, D.C, 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% chance of sustaining a deep impact.
Unlike the Earth, our natural satellite lacks an atmosphere to shield it, so YR4 would hit at around 30,000 miles 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 1,640 to 6,500 feet 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,” assured Rankin.
Although he noted that the collision “would likely be very visible from Earth,” per Live Science.
If YR4 is on a collision course with Earth, on the other hand, we might not be able to stop it.
In an ominous series of X posts earlier this week, UK volcanologist Robin George Andrews noted there might not be enough time to redirect it using DART (the Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft — which was successfully used to knock the 580-foot-wide asteroid Dimorphos off course in 2022.
“With only a few years down the line, we could accidentally deflect it — but not enough to make it avoid the planet,” he theorised. “Then, it still hits Earth, just somewhere else that wasn’t going to be hit.”
NASA recently enlisted the aid of the James Webb telescope — the planet’s most powerful — to analyse 2024 YR4 and determine the level of damage it would cause if it did strike the planet
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.
Fortunately, Dr. Rankin assures us that we need not fear Ragna-rock just yet.
“As of now, there is still a 97.9% chance of a miss with respect to Earth,” he said. “This asteroid is nothing to lose sleep over.”
This story was published by the New York Post and was reproduced with permission
Originally published as Impact ‘city-killer’ asteroid would have on Earth
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