NASA shares important message as 'city-destroying' asteroid could hit Earth within 10 years

A NASA director has shared a very important message after it emerged a 'city-destroying' asteroid could hit Planet Earth within the next 10 years.

The asteroid is called 2024 YR4 and it was found by NASA's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System - it has about a one-in-83 chance of hitting our planet in 2032, reports LiveScience, and is top of NASA's Sentry Risk Table and European Space Agency's NEO (near Earth objects) impact Risk List.

It's estimated to be 196 feet (60 metres) wide and is currently 27 million miles away although if it does hit Earth, it could wipe out a city.

Our planet will have several close shaves with it over the next half century or so but the one with the highest chance of impact will be on December 22 2032, according to NASA.

Other brushes are forecast to happen in late 2028 with six more between 2032 and 2074, including the highest risk one.

Amateur astronomer Tony Dunn shared a simulation of the asteroid approaching on social media.

And a NASA director has shared a key message.

LADBible reports Paul Chodas, director of NASA's Centre for Near Earth Object Studies, said: "We are not worried at all because of this 99 percent chance it will miss. But it deserves attention."

This was echoed by David Rankin, Catalina Sky Survey engineer and asteroid hunter.

He told Space.com: "People should absolutely not worry about this yet. Impact probability is still very low and the most likely outcome will be a close approaching rock that misses us."

He added the "risk corridor", where the asteroid could hit Earth, runs through South America across the Atlantic and into sub-Saharan Africa.

"It is just important to keep in mind that its orbit is still too uncertain to know if it will hit, and right now, the most likely outcome is a miss," Rankin added. "This impact corridor estimation will eventually go stale with new observations and better orbit calculations."

Elsewhere, the building blocks for life have been found in samples collected from an asteroid and the mystery of huge dust storms on Mars may well have finally been solved.

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