The probabilities do not go in the right direction for YR4. Recently discovered by astronomers, this asteroid is now 3.1 % chance of hitting the earth. It is the highest level ever recorded since the start of surveillance, according to NASA on Tuesday calculations.
Estimated between 40 and 90 meters wide, this asteroid could hit the earth on December 22, 2032, according to estimates of international space agencies and potentially cause considerable damage.
“I don’t panic”
However, a forecast to be taken with tweezers because it is based on preliminary data and is led to evolve in the coming weeks and months. “I do not panic,” says Bruce Betts of the American organization Planetary Society, while calling to closely monitor the asteroid, baptized 2024 YR4.
If it were crashing on earth, its impact could be 500 times more powerful than Hiroshima’s nuclear bomb, according to current estimates. Enough to destroy an entire city for example or cause a tsunami, if the impact was close to an island or coast.
An event, however, “very, very rare”
Although the risk of collision is now considered low, it is the highest ever recorded in more than two decades of monitoring celestial objects. Such an event is “very, very rare”, explains Richard Moissl, head of the planetary defense office of the European Space Agency (ESA), who wants to be reassuring: “For the general public, there is no danger for the moment ”.
In the early 2000s, the Apophis asteroid agitated the international scientific community with its 2.7 % chance of hitting the earth in 2029. A probability of impact which had quickly passed close to zero.
Our space file
According to current observations, 2024 YR4 would be from the same category as an asteroid who crushed in 1908 in an isolated region of Siberia, due to its shine. This event, known as Toungouska, poorly documented, would have led to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest. If the risk that such a disaster occurs in almost eight years confirmed, the international space community could consider a mission to deflect the trajectory of the asteroid.