The chance of the 'city-destroying' asteroid hitting Earth has changed again

NASA has given an update about the likelihood of the terrifying ‘city-destroying’ asteroid predicted to hit Earth in 2032.

Many people started making doomsday plans when news came to light that an asteroid was hurtling in the direction of Earth. Named 2024 YR4, it was first detected by telescopes on December 27, 2024 and was estimated to be 131 to 295 feet (40 to 90 metres) wide, which is comparable to a large building.

It quickly rose to the top of NASA’s Sentry Risk table and at one point had a 1 in 32 chance of hitting our home planet.

Although 2024 YR4 is millions of miles away from Earth, experts have calculated that it could strike our planet by December 2032, where it could enter our atmosphere at speeds of 38,000mph and cause as much damage as 100 nuclear bombs.

The asteroid also landed on Level 3 on the Torino scale, a system used since 1999 to slot potential Earth impact events into categories. Level 3 indicates a “close encounter” with a near-Earth object, suggesting a significant possibility of 1 per cent or greater, but not a guaranteed collision. A planetary defence response was put into action and experts closely tracked the likelihood of impact, which rose to 3.1 per cent on 18 February.

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Experts warned that the asteroid could impact somewhere across the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Arabian Sea, or South Asia.

But we can all breathe a sigh of relief. The odds of 2024 YR4 colliding with Earth is now so low we don't need to panic. The probability was reduced thanks to data collected by NASA on Sunday (23 February) revealed the likelihood is just 0.0017 per cent and it currently ranks zero on the Torino impact hazard scale, which ranges from a no-risk zero to 10, a global catastrophe.

The European Space Agency previously warned that the probability of an asteroid impacting Earth often rises before dropping once additional observations are made.

And now, after making a huge impact on headlines and pop culture in the last few weeks, 2024 YR4 will likely drop from public attention. However, Richard Binzel, professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) told Space.com a few key lessons we can all learn.

“As 2024 YR4 fades away from the news cycle, I think there is an overall context that is the most important takeaway news. "An object the size of YR4 passes harmlessly through the Earth-moon neighborhood as frequently as a few times per year.

"The YR4 episode is just the beginning for astronomers gaining the capability to see these objects before they come calling through our neck of the woods."

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