The United Nations Organization has activated the Planetary Security Protocol after detecting a potentially hazardous asteroid, which has been named 2024 YR4. According to Juan Luis Cano, the coordinator of the NASA planetary defense office, this information was confirmed to RTVE. The asteroid was first detected on December 27 in Chile by the Atlas land impact alert system, a network of asteroid detection systems deployed in different parts of the world, as reported by the New York Times.
The Coordination Center of Objects close to Earth (NEOCC) of the European Space Agency (ESA) has provided an update on the size and probability of the asteroid impacting the Earth. Currently, the asteroid is estimated to have a diameter of approximately 40 to 90 meters, and its probability of impact with the Earth has been increasing since its discovery, now standing at 1.6%. Although this figure is considered low, it has triggered alert protocols.
The potential impact date is December 22, 2032, with a rating of 3 on the Torino Scale, indicating an average risk that warrants attention from astronomers and the public. The ESA notes that the probability of an asteroid impact often increases initially before rapidly decreasing to zero as more observations are made. The regions that could be affected by the arrival of 2024 YR4 include the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, southern Asia, and the Atlantic Ocean, with Europe not being at risk.
The asteroid meets the criteria to activate the International Asteroid Alert Network (IAWN) and the Space Missions Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG), which will continue to monitor the asteroid in the coming weeks until it reaches its observability limit from Earth. If the impact risk does not increase significantly, the SMPAG is expected to meet in late April or early May to reevaluate the situation after the asteroid has disappeared from view. The ESA points out that an asteroid of this size impacts the Earth on average every several thousand years and could cause serious damage to a local region.