An asteroid – ‘2024 YRF’ – discovered by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ALERT) in Chile on December 27, 2024, is being called ‘city destroyer’ by people online due to its size, speed, and the possibility of hitting Earth in the near future, with India among countries on its radar.
Estimated to be about 40 to 90 meters wide, 2024 YR4 has an average 2 per cent chance of hitting Earth, on December 22, 2032.
According to Dr Paul Chodas of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, this size range is comparable to that of a large building.
Which countries are on its radar?
As per NASA, in the unlikely event of 2024 YR4 being on a collision trajectory, the impact would occur somewhere along a ‘risk corridor,’ which extends across the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Arabian Sea, and South Asia.
Therefore, some of the countries which could be in the asteroid’s path are: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.
How significant is the risk?
Currently, 2024 YR4 is at Torino Scale 3, an uncommon one for an asteroid to be rated at. Astronomers describe this level as a ‘close encounter meriting attention’ because such an asteroid has a 1 per cent or greater chance of a collision, one severe enough to cause localised destruction.
Severity of likely impact, current position
In the event of a collision, 2024 YR4 would impact at a high velocity, roughly 17 kilometres per second or about 38,000 mph, NASA said.
Space journalist Kate Arkless Gray told BBC that at around 40 meters, the hit would be ‘something like an air blast,’ i.e., there wouldn't be too much damage except shattering of some windows.
"However, on the 90 meters end of the scale, we’re looking at what they would call a city killer, where if it was to land on a major city – and there are a few in the potential hit zone – that would be disastrous,” she added.
As of January 31, 2025, the 2024 YR4 is 48 million km (30 million miles) from Earth, and the asteroid is moving farther away on its outbound path around the Sun. It will continue its orbit around the Sun and will safely return to Earth’s neighborhood in 2028.