Asteroid 2024 YR4 is definitely keeping NASA on its toes, as the specter of its potential to collide with Earth in 2032 continues to yo-yo.
Just three days ago, the space agency announced that the now-notorious piece of space rock had a roughly 3 per cent probability of colliding with our planet — but by Thursday that probability has dropped.
In keeping with NASA’s Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), the danger of the large space rock, dubbed a “city killer,” has now fallen to about 1.5 per cent.
The near-Earth asteroid first made headlines last month, when NASA and the European Space Agency announced its existence and said it carried a 1 per cent probability of coming into contact with our planet. The very best estimate, by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, suggested a 3.1 per cent probability the asteroid will hit Earth on Dec. 22, 2032.
That increase briefly saw 2024 YR4 turn out to be essentially the most dangerous asteroid within the history of CNEOS’s Sentry Risk Table.
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and all over the world, join for breaking news alerts delivered on to you once they occur.
“An asteroid this size impacts Earth on average every few thousand years and will cause severe damage to a neighborhood region,” the ESA said in an area safety briefing. “In consequence, the thing rose to the highest of ESA’s asteroid risk list.”
Regarding essentially the most recent drop in impact risk, NASA wrote: “Latest observations of asteroid 2024 YR4 helped us update its probability of impact in 2032. The present probability is 1.5%.”
“Our understanding of the asteroid’s path improves with every remark. We’ll keep you posted,” the agency said, indicating that more updates are sure to come back.
The asteroid measures between 40 and 90 metres wide, based on estimates from its reflected light.
Scientists have previously said it’s not keeping them up at night and nobody should panic, despite not with the ability to rule out the potential for an impact.
While experts are unsure where the collision would occur, a warning published in late January by the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) said the impact risk corridor extends “across the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Arabian Sea, and South Asia.”
If it did strike Earth, 2024 YR4 would cause “severe blast damage,” in keeping with IAWN, spanning so far as 50 kilometres from the impact site.
In keeping with the ESA, NASA and other space agencies can be using the James Webb Space Telescope to proceed to get an much more accurate assessment of the asteroid’s size with the intention to higher understand “how significant an impact might be.”
“It is vitally essential that we improve our size estimate for 2024 YR4: the hazard represented by a 40 m asteroid may be very different from that of a 90 m asteroid,” the report reads.
—With files from Global News’ Katie Scott
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
