NASA has given a major update on the ‘city-killing’ asteroid which has been hurtling towards Earth – and it finally makes for pleasant reading.
After months of increasing odds, the space agency has now revealed that the asteroid 2024 YR4 now has a negligible chance of hitting the planet in 2032.
According to NASA’s Sentry impact monitoring system, the odds of the asteroid hitting Earth on December 22, 2032, are now just one in 26,000.
Thankfully, that means there is a 99.9961 per cent chance that the space rock will harmlessly pass Earth by.
The news will come as a relief to the world’s planetary defence organisations, which have been preparing to decide whether the asteroid was a big enough risk to warrant deflection.
Before this sudden downgrade, 2024 YR4 set alarm bells ringing at the world’s space agencies as its impact probability hit a peak of one-in-32, or 3.1 per cent, last week.
As the ‘riskiest’ asteroid ever detected, 2024 YR4 was briefly awarded a rare score of three on the Torino Scale, a measure for the danger of Near Earth Objects (NEOs).
Now, to reflect its new impact probability, the asteroid’s Torino rating has been bumped down to zero – meaning it is no longer considered a danger to Earth.
NASA has now revealed that the asteroid 2024 YR4 no longer poses a threat to Earth
After being discovered in December last year, the asteroid 2024 YR4 quickly leapt to the top of NASA’s and the European Space Agency’s list of risky space objects.
Early calculations of its orbit quickly showed that there was a slim chance of the near-Earth object (NEO) making a close pass of the planet in the next decade.
On January 27, 2024 YR4 truly sparked concern when it became the only large asteroid with an impact probability greater than one per cent.
The asteroid’s impact probability continued to rise throughout February until it reached a maximum of one-in-32 last week.
With an estimated diameter of 54 metres (177ft), or a little taller than Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square, an impact between 2024 YR4 would have caused serious devastation.
NASA estimates that 2024 YR4 has the potential to unleash a blast equivalent to nearly eight megatons of TNT – more than 500 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Scientists suggest the detonation could be similar to that of the Tunguska Asteroid, which flattened 830 square miles (2,150 square km) of Siberian forest in 1908 – an area more than double the size of New York.
Were that to hit a populated area, the result could potentially be millions of casualties.
After briefly becoming the riskiest asteroid ever detected, NASA has now reduced the probability that 2024 YR4 (pictured) will hit Earth to one-in-26,000
This image shows the orbit of asteroid 2024 YR4 in purple with the sun in the centre and orbits of planets (Mercury = cyan; Venus = yellow; Earth = dark blue; Mars = red). Note the asteroid’s position (purple dot) in relation to Earth (dark blue dot) about a month before an impact might happen
However, after rising to their peak, the odds of an impact have now fallen sharply.
By February 21, the asteroid’s impact probability had slumped to just one-in-360, or 0.28 per cent.
As more observations came in over the weekend, NASA has now lowered those odds even further to an extremely slim 0.0039 per cent.
With a new Torino Rating of zero, this means NASA no longer considers 2024 YR4 to pose any threat to Earth.
Professor Richard Binzel, planetary scientist at MIT and inventor of the Torino Scale, told MailOnline: ‘Torino Scale Zero gives the “all clear” as additional tracking of the asteroid’s orbital path reduces its possibility of intersecting the Earth to below the 1-in-1000 threshold established for downgrading to Level 0.’
In fact, Professor Binzel says that the rapidly falling probability is ‘exactly the expected outcome’ for an asteroid like 2024 YR4.
When astronomers measure an asteroid’s movement they don’t get an exact prediction of its orbit, rather they calculate its likely movements with a fairly large margin of error.
With just a few observations to begin with, this margin of error is very large and Earth only takes up a small fraction of the ‘uncertainty region’, so the probability is low.
A scary simulation video was created to show what would happen if the asteroid hit New York City, revealing the impact would level buildings
In a post on X (Twitter), NASA posted new observations of the space rock, which is estimated to be about 130 to 300 feet (40 to 90 metres) across
As more observations are made, the uncertainty region shrinks, and Earth takes up more of the remaining area so we see the probability going up.
Then, at a certain point, the uncertainty region shrinks to the point that it no longer includes Earth, and the impact probability very quickly drops towards zero.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 orbits the sun on an elliptical orbit – meaning one that it’s elongated and not perfectly circular.
Right now, it is actually relatively close to Earth – around 30 million miles away – which is why NASA telescopes can detect it in the night sky.
It is moving further away because it’s set to begin an orbit around the sun – but by December 2032 it’s due to come concerningly close to, or even hit, our planet.
The constantly-shifting odds are due to the rock’s multi-million mph movement through space, which is made more difficult to discern when the full moon is out and there’s more moonlight.
With enough observations now gathered by astronomers all around the world, Earth is no longer within the asteroid’s uncertainty region and so the has dropped to negligible levels.
In the future, Professor Binzel says that detecting objects with a risk profile similar to 2024 YR4 should become more common.
The probability falls off quickly because astronomers have been shrinking the asteroid’s ‘uncertainty region’ through more observations. As the region shrinks, Earth initially takes up more of the remaining area and so the probability rises. Eventually, the region shrinks so that the Earth is no longer included and the probability drops to zero. Picture: The uncertainty region on February 6
However, this is not because the Earth is in any more danger, but rather because we will have better telescopes dedicated to spotting NEOs.
Professor Binzel says: ‘The takeaway lesson is that an object the size of YR4 passes harmlessly through the Earth-Moon neighbourhood as frequently as a few times per year.
‘This means that objects with low categories on the Torino Scale are likely to be a common occurrence, of interest to space enthusiasts and astronomers for follow-up, but not particularly newsworthy.
‘Rather than making anyone anxious, by finding these objects that are already out there and pinning down their orbits, we are becoming more secure in our knowledge that any sizable asteroid is not likely to take us by surprise.’
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .