You’ll have heard about 2024 YR4, an asteroid that’s hurtling in the direction of Earth and would possibly hit us in just a few years’ time. As scary as that may sound, there is not any want to hunt speedy cowl or say goodbye to your family members. Issues are most likely going to be simply high quality.

What Is An Asteroid?

Whereas meteoroids are small items of rock that trigger meteors once they collide with Earth’s ambiance, and comets are our bodies of ice, mud, and rock that orbit the solar, asteroids are chunks of rock and/or steel, often spanning something from just a few meters as much as a whole bunch of kilometers throughout, believed to be planet formation particles.

Particularly, asteroid 2024 YR4 is a near-Earth asteroid estimated to be between 40 and 90 meters (130 to 300 ft) in diameter. Once I say “near-Earth,” don’t fret—it isn’t posing any hazard to us… but. This time period merely signifies that its orbit brings it into Earth’s area within the Photo voltaic System.

The “2024” in its identify displays the 12 months when it was first noticed on two consecutive nights by the identical observer, and “YR4” is a code that signifies the half-month of the invention and the sequence inside that half-month. In brief, 2024 YR4 was found on December 27, 2024, by the Chilean station of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Final Alert System.

Will 2024 YR4 Hit Earth, and How Do We Know?

Throughout the first couple of months of its discovery, NASA scientists estimated that asteroid 2024 YR4 has between a 1.2% (the December 2024 estimation) and a 3.1% (the mid-February 2025 estimation) likelihood of impacting Earth on December 22, 2032.

Though these numbers appear small, 2024 YR4 is at present excessive on the European Space Agency’s and NASA’s risk lists. What’s extra, for the reason that asteroid’s collision chances are above the 1% impression chance threshold, US authorities businesses, the House Mission Planning Advisory Group, the United Nations, and different our bodies have obtained formal notification of its presence and potential hazard. That mentioned, many asteroids up to now that originally brought about concern have been subsequently dominated out as scientists obtained extra observations.

NASA has been working alongside the Worldwide Asteroid Warning Community, observing the asteroid’s trajectory and pace from ground-based telescopes till April 2025, when it is going to turn out to be too distant from Earth to watch. In March 2025, NASA’s James Webb House Telescope will give us a extra correct thought of the asteroid’s dimension. After 2024 YR4 disappears from view, we cannot be capable of see it once more till round halfway by means of the 12 months 2028, when scientists may have a higher thought of whether or not it is prone to impression.

Figuring out all of the properties above will assist scientists higher assess not solely whether or not 2024 YR4 is on target to hit Earth, but in addition, whether it is, what extent of injury it might trigger and whether or not we will forestall the collision altogether. As of early February 2025, NASA says that the asteroid is “massive sufficient to trigger localized injury”—in different phrases, planet Earth is not bracing itself for one more Chicxulub impactor, the asteroid that worn out the dinosaurs 66 million years in the past, however it might nonetheless be catastrophic at and across the level of impression.

2024 YR4 is ranked as a 3 on the Torino scale, which measures the possibilities and potential penalties of an impression. A 0 represents no hazard, and 10 means a sure collision, and NASA defines level 3 as:

• A detailed encounter that deserves astronomers’ consideration,
• A 1% or higher likelihood of collision that might trigger localized injury, and
• An occasion that deserves public and public officers’ consideration if the potential impression is throughout the subsequent decade (which 2024 YR4 is).

NASA additionally provides that new observations usually lead objects at stage 3 to being re-assigned to Degree 0.

Can We Forestall Asteroid Impacts?

In 2002, NASA carried out the first-ever mission exploring whether or not we might change an asteroid’s path by deflecting it through kinetic impact. Aptly referred to as DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Take a look at), the impactor spacecraft geared up with a digicam and the flexibility to information itself instantly impacted a small asteroid, Dimorphos, shorting its orbital interval round a bigger, close by asteroid by 32 minutes and 42 seconds.

One other principle proposed by area geeks is the usage of a so-called “gravity tractor,” a spacecraft that orbits or hovers subsequent to the asteroid and makes use of its gravitational pull to change the asteroid’s trajectory over time. Whereas this technique would have the benefit of solely needing small quantities of power to make slight changes, uncertainty about how the spacecraft’s exhaust might instantly oppose its gravitational pull stays.

Occasions corresponding to these function stark reminders that we’re removed from alone in area—and naturally-existing objects aren’t the one issues that accompany us. For instance, in addition to watching many meteor showers all year round, you possibly can track the International Space Station because it flies overhead.