‘City killer’ asteroid 2024 YR4 no longer a threat to Earth, scientists say
The chance of a football field-sized asteroid striking Earth in 2032 has fallen to 0.001 per cent
After two months of observations, scientists have almost fully ruled out any threat from the asteroid 2024 YR4, Nasa and the European Space Agency said Tuesday.
At one point, the odds of a strike in 2032 were as high as about 3 per cent and topped the world’s asteroid-risk lists.
ESA has since lowered the odds to 0.001 per cent. Nasa has it down to 0.0017 per cent – meaning the asteroid would safely pass Earth in 2032 and there was no threat of impact for the next century.
Paul Chodas, who heads Nasa’s Centre for Near Earth Objects Studies, said there was no chance the odds would rise at this point and that an impact in 2032 has been ruled out.
“That’s the outcome we expected all along, although we couldn’t be 100 per cent sure that it would happen,” he said in an email.
But there was still a 1.7 per cent chance that asteroid could hit the moon on December 22, 2032, according to Nasa. Chodas expected the odds of a moon strike would also fade.