NASA on Thursday updated the risk of Asteroid 2024 YR4 to a 1.5% chance of collision with Earth in 2032, down from the 3.1% reported on Tuesday.
The space agency called the asteroid a “city-killer” and warned if it were to make contact on December 22, 2032, it could destroy approximately 100 million people across three continents.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 went from a 1 in 32 chance of collision from 1 in 67 within a 48 hour period. As the Western Standard earlier reported, it measures between 40 and 90 metres in diameter and is moving at approximately 46,800 km per hour.
“New observations of Asteroid 2024 YR4 helped us update its chance of impact in 2032. The current probability is 1.5%,” wrote NASA on social media.
“Our understanding of the asteroid's path improves with every observation. We'll keep you posted.”
While NASA’s most recent announcement may be a relief, the asteroid remains at Level 3 on the Torino Scale, a rubric that demonstrates the danger of asteroids based on size and probability of collision.
Level 3 is reserved for Near Earth Objects (NEO) that measure more than 20 ms in diameter and pose an impact risk of more than 1%, according to NASA’s website. Asteroid 2024 YR4 is a “close encounter, meriting attention by astronomers” with a “1% or greater chance of collision capable of localized destruction.”
