Space experts have issued a major update into an asteroid which was expected to smash Earth – causing an eight-megaton explosion.
Luckily, new observations by NASA revealed that Space rock 2024 YR4 will no longer crash into our planet. However, it could set its sights on the moon instead.
It comes after the asteroid was initially ruled to have a 3.1% probability of impacting Earth on December 22, 2032. The space rock would have caused mass devastation, leaving a catastrophic aftermath on Earth.
But now, James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), who works at NASA, detected a change in the rock’s course. Researchers have shared the development and suspect that it could impact the lunar surface.
An international team of astronomers wrote in a research memo: “While an Earth impact by 2024 YR4 on December 22, 2032, has now been ruled out, it continues to have a non-zero probability of impacting the Moon at this time.”
They add that additional observations of 2024 YR4 will be made by JWST in May 2025, which will “primarily help refine the orbital and thermal properties” of the asteroid.
A chilling visualisation had shown what might happen if the asteroid hit Earth in 2032, as scientists feared. If the asteroid were to strike Earth, the energy released could be equivalent to 8 megatons of TNT, capable of devastating an area the size of Washington, D.C.
An 8-megaton explosion would be over 500 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, which had a yield of approximately 15 kilotons (0.015 megatons).
Online reactions before Earth impact was discounted had included: “I guarantee they are already building bunkers underground” and “That won’t happen because obviously Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck are going to go up there, drill a hole in the side and nuke it.”
The last time an asteroid came close enough to Earth with more than a 1% chance of impact was in 2004, when the Apophis asteroid flew by. However, later examinations estimated that the rock wouldn’t pose another risk to us for at least a century.
Asteroids last crashed into Earth in 1908 when a 2,000km squared patch of forest in Siberia was wiped out in a big explosion consistent with an impact. However, scientists believe this was more likely to have come from a pile of several pieces of rock rather than one large one.
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