Good News- Observations Confirm Asteroid 2024 YR4 Won’t Hit Earth

Last week, headlines were buzzing with the alarming news of an asteroid with the chances of hitting Earth in less than a decade. That asteroid; 2024 YR4 had a 3.1% chance of colliding with Earth in 2032. However, scientists have ruled out any possibility of it hitting Earth as the impact probability lowered to almost 0%. 

The asteroid was first spotted on Dec. 27, 2024, by the El Sauce Observatory in Chile.  Asteroid 2024 YR4, which measures almost the size of a football field, is not the size of the dinosaur-killing asteroid. If it did hit the Earth, it would still be devastating but not a city-killer. Currently, it is almost 60 million miles away from us. But according to NASA, there still is a very small chance for the asteroid to impact the Moon on Dec. 22, 2032. That probability is currently 1.7%. 

Harborfields High School sophomore Lucy Purpora says, “I’m scared, what is the government doing about it?”

But don’t panic, NASA has the potential to deflect an asteroid from hitting Earth, but it would take years of planning and a lot of money. As of now, NASA has observatories to scan the skies for asteroid or comet threats and Near-Earth-Object, or NEO tracking. According to Space.com, asteroids of .62 miles in size or larger have the potential of causing a global disaster if they were to hit the Earth. In 2022, NASA also successfully tested a technique called kinetic impact, by crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid in a mission called DART, demonstrating the ability to change an asteroid's trajectory. 

Asteroid YR4 poses no significant threat to us any longer, and even if it did; NASA is making technological advances and we can take preventive measures to ensure our safety.