A so-called “city killer”, asteroid scientists followed after discovering that he had a little chance of hitting the earth in 2032 “no longer represents a significant threat,” said NASA in its latest analysis.
The 2024 YR4 asteroid, which is almost the size of a football field, is now about 0.004% chance of hitting the ground in about eight years, according to the space agency Latest calculations. The Center for Studies of Objects close to the Earth Previously projected A chance of 3% asteroids hitting our planet before reducing the chance to 0.28% last week.
NASA said that changes are due to the continuous observations of the asteroid which allow experts to “calculate more precise models of the asteroid trajectory”. There is now no significant potential for this particular asteroid to have an impact on earth for the next century, added the agency.
“The latest observations have further reduced the uncertainty of its future trajectory, and the range of possible locations that the asteroid could be on December 22, 2032, has moved away from the earth,” said NASA.
The moon, however, could be in the 2024 -year -old asteroid path. The latest figures from NASA show that there is a probability of 1.7% that it could have an impact on the moon.
The asteroid was spotted for the first time on December 27, 2024 by the El Sauce Observatory in Chile. Based on its brightness, astronomers estimate that it is between 130 and 300 feet wide.
Meanwhile, NASA continues to monitor other threats of potential asteroids SentinelIts automated collision monitoring system that scans the most current asteroid catalog for future impact possibilities with the earth over the next century.
