The Asteroid That May Cause Earth's Demise
- Salena Sharma
- May 19
- 3 min read
Updated: 20 hours ago
On December 22, 2032, the streets will be filled with people doing last-minute holiday shopping, carolers spreading cheer amongst the angsty civilians, and people spending time with one another, forgetting their worries. Scientists that day will have their eyes glued to their screens as 2024 YR4 will slowly make its way toward Earth, but don’t worry, the chances of it colliding with the planet are 3%
2024 YR4 is an asteroid which, I’m assuming you figured out by now, was discovered in 2024. The asteroid itself is estimated to be around 40-90 meters wide, with recent data showing it most likely under 40-50 meters. Scientists are still unsure of the exact size of the planet, but whether it’s 40 meters or 90, size makes a huge difference. If you double the radius of an asteroid, that’s eight times the mass, eight times the energy, all of which constitute a more disastrous outcome.
Despite the low collision predictability, space organizations such as NASA are still monitoring it closely in case any changes are detected in the asteroid’s orbit. Scientists have been monitoring it more closely recently, since the collision probability has doubled since late January. This has raised a few concerns for scientists since many are skeptical that the impact probability may increase in the coming months and years, but for now, don’t worry too much about it because scientists, just like any human, can be wrong!
The asteroid passes us every four years; the last time it did so was in December 2024. The next time it will pass us is in 2028, which isn’t supposed to harm anything, but the pass-by in 2032 raises concern for scientists. What the asteroid will do is essentially follow Earth along its path and pass the planet really closely. What’s hard for scientists to predict is where the asteroid will intercept: will it be closer to the Moon or farther away to prevent any harm? Scientists are monitoring the asteroid as frequently as possible with large telescopes to predict its path and know for sure where it will intercept Earth’s path.
Stressful situations with asteroids have happened in the past, the first one being 20 years ago with the asteroid Apophis. That asteroid had a very low probability of colliding with Earth, and once the time came around, nothing happened to Earth; the asteroid didn’t collide or scathe the planet one bit.
The probability of the asteroid hitting us since its discovery stems from comparing the size of the Earth with the uncertainty area. The uncertainty area is essentially the area under which measured values will actually fall once you account for sources of error and other discrepancies. For this case, the size of the Earth in its uncertainty area is compared to the area of uncertainty where the asteroid could be. Before, this fractional comparison was 1%, but now it’s 3% because the size of the uncertainty region has shrunk by half, meaning Earth occupies twice the amount of space in the uncertainty region.
Since the above explanation is quite confusing, think of it this way: When you put a soccer ball in a swimming pool, that ball does not take up a lot of space because a swimming pool is quite large. If you put the ball in a bathtub instead, it will take up more space because the tub is small. A similar effect works with Earth in the uncertainty area. The main reason why our perception of its uncertainty area changed is that it’s difficult to predict an asteroid’s orbit when it's first discovered, but gradually, scientists learn more about the asteroid and its preferred path.
If I scared some of you with this end-of-world depiction, please have no worries because there is only a 3% chance that the asteroid will actually hit us, and a 97% chance that nothing will happen! For now, don’t panic, but follow astronomy news more closely for any updates.
If the asteroid does hit, it may only cause local damage and not erase the face of humanity.
Scientists will be monitoring the asteroid and its pathway until April, and after then, it will be too faint to discern and will be picked up again by ground telescopes in 2028.
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