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Don't Look Up, But We Have a New Space Rock to Worry About [1]

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Date: 2025-01-30

Just over a month ago, on December 27, 2024, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) discovered asteroid 2024 YR4, two days after it had just made its closest approach to Earth — 515,000 miles, or a little more than twice the distance of our Moon. And while this is a fairly sizeable space rock, estimated to be between 40-100 meters in diameter (130-330 feet), or about the size of the objects involved in the 1908 Tunguska blast in Siberia, or Meteor Crater in Arizona ~50,000 years ago, things of this size actually pass by the Earth quite harmlessly with a fair degree of frequency.

What makes this particular space rock more notable is that there is now a non-negligible chance of it actually striking our planet on a future close encounter — more specifically on December 22, 2032, give or take about 1.5 days. Quoting from its own wikipedia entry:

As of 29 January 2025, 2024 YR 4 is rated 3 on the Torino scale with a 1 in 77 (1.3%) chance of impacting Earth on 22 December 2032, and a 1 in 71 (1.4%) cumulative chance of impacting Earth beyond 2032.[5]

This may not sound like that big a deal yet, but the only other object to ever rate this high or higher on the Torino impact hazard scale thus far was Apophis back in 2004 when initial observations indicated a probability of 2.7% that it could strike our planet on Friday, April 13, 2029 — putting it at 4 on the Torino scale. Fortunately, further observations of its orbital trajectory soon reduced that probability to near zero, and now its Torino scale ranking is back down to 0.

Unfortunately, that is not what we’re seeing with the probability estimates with 2024 YR4. The initial estimate was actually down around 1.1%, but since then:

A search through archival Subaru Telescope images from 2016 did not find 2024 YR 4 , which rules out some distant approaches to Earth in 2032.[11] This raises 2024 YR 4 's impact probability to 3–6%, depending on whether the 25 December 2024 precovery observation is included in the orbit calculation.[13]

Again, that may not sound like something to get too excited about — going from a ~1/90 chance of a 5-20 megaton atmospheric blast in 2032 to a roughly 1/20 chance — but the probabilities are moving in the wrong direction, and that definitely makes me more than a bit nervous. The NYT also has an article out that generally tries to minimize the potential danger, except for this disturbing passage:

“The possibility that 2024 YR4 might impact in 2032 was identified right after discovery,” said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at the NASA center. But based on just a few observations, the prediction uncertainties for 2032 were initially very large. As the number of observations grew to the hundreds, he said, “the impact probability has gradually increased over the last month and has now surpassed 1 percent, an important threshold.” ... What normally happens is that the impact odds plummet to zero as more observations come in and the asteroid’s orbit is better known with more precision. The same story will probably unfold with 2024 YR4. “The most likely outcome is that further observations will rule out an impact,” Mr. Rankin said. 2024 YR4 is getting extremely faint as it travels away from Earth, meaning most telescopes are going to struggle to track it. “However, given this is a special case, members of the community have requested (and received) time on some of the larger and more capable facilities,” Dr. Rivkin said. “Those should do OK through April.” Astronomers will also have an even greater opportunity to refine their predictions during the December 2028 flyby. But until then, it’s possible that an impact in 2032 won’t be entirely ruled out.

Let’s hope that the extended observations through April do lead to a lessening of the probability of a collision in 2032, otherwise we might be in for a very unpleasant surprise in 2028 when we should learn whether 2032 will really be something to worry about or not.

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