Astronomers raise the impact risk of Asteroid YR4 to 3.1%: Is there real danger?

This celestial body, between 40 and 90 meters wide, could impact the planet on December 22, 2032, according to estimates of international space agencies, and potentially cause considerable damage, such as the destruction of a city.

A prognosis that must be taken cautiously because it is based on preliminary data and it is likely to change in the coming weeks and months, experts consulted by the AFP insist.

“I don’t panic”said Bruce Betts, from the American Planienty Society organization. But he asked that this asteroid be monitored, baptized “2024 YR4”.

If it crashed against the earth, its impact could be 500 times more powerful than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb, According to current estimates. Enough to destroy an entire city, for example, Betts said. Or even cause a tsunami, if the impact were close to an island or the coast.

“Very, very rare”

Although it is now considered that the risk of collision is low, it is the highest ever registered in more than two decades of surveillance of celestial objects.

Something is “Very, very rare”but “At the moment there is no danger”Richard Moissl, head of the Planetary Defense Office of the European Space Defense (ESA), told AFP.

At the beginning of the 2000s, Asteroid Apophis shocked the international scientific community for its 2.7% probability of impacting the Earth in 2029.

An index that quickly reduced to almost zero.

The prognosis for 2024 YR4 is also expected to evolve shortly as more information about its trajectory is collected.

Scientists especially trust the James Webb space telescope to make more precise observations in March.

But time is pressing because the asteroid is in an orbit that moves away from the earth. It should disappear from the view of terrestrial telescopes in the coming months before being observable in 2028, experts estimate.

Space mission

According to its current observations, 2024 YR4 would be in the same category as an asteroid that crashed in 1908 in a remote region of Siberia, due to its brightness.

This little documented fact caused the destruction of hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest.

If the risk was confirmed, the international space community could consider a mission to divert the trajectory of the asteroid.

Scientists have been working for years to develop this type of planetary defense means.

In 2022, a NASA mission managed to change the trajectory of a harmless asteroid by making a ship crash against him, a scoop worthy of a Hollywood script.