Asteroid YR4 May Impact Earth in 2032 Sparks UN Concern

An asteroid near Earth could potentially impact our planet in the year 2032. The international asteroid alert network issued a notification on January 29 for a potential impact of asteroid YR4, specifying a possible impact date of December 22, 2032. Although there are no certainties that the asteroid will impact Earth, if an impact occurs, it will be on that date. The alert also adds that there are almost 99% probabilities that YR4 will pass the Earth safely.

This situation is unusual, and YR4 is the second asteroid whose impact risk exceeds 1% after 99942, known as ‘Apophis’, which could hit the Earth in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Discovered on December 27, 2024, YR4 is estimated to be between 40 and 100 meters wide. According to the European Space Agency, it is still too soon to know the exact location where the impact could occur, but the IAWN report mentions a “risk corridor” that includes the Eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Arabian Sea, and southern Asia.

The ATLAS telescope detected an asteroid that, in case of impact, could generate an impact that could cause damage within a 50-kilometer radius. The ESA clarifies that an asteroid of this size impacts the Earth on average every several thousand years and could cause serious damage to a local region. On the Turin impact risk scale, a NASA tool to categorize possible land impact events, this asteroid is in a category of 3 out of 10. This means that astronomers’ attention is deserved, and current calculations give a 1% or more probability that a collision capable of causing localized destruction occurs.

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As the ESA recalls, the IAWN, chaired by NASA, is responsible for coordinating the International Group of Organizations that participate in asteroid monitoring. If necessary, it would be the IAWN that would elaborate a strategy to help the governments of the world to analyze the consequences of the impact of asteroids and to plan the necessary mitigation responses. The asteroid’s orbit around the sun is elongated, and it currently moves away from the Earth in a straight line, making it difficult to determine its orbit by studying its curved trajectory over time.

It is possible that asteroid YR4 disappears from our view before the possible impact and can be observable again in 2028. New future observations may result in a reallocation of the asteroid at the Risk scale 0. In 2022, NASA’s DART mission successfully diverted the trajectory of Asteroid Dimorphos, a mission that achieved its goal and provided vital evidence for the Earth to defend itself against dangerous space and asteroids in the future. The impact was recorded, and the moment was broadcast live thanks to cameras placed on the ship, allowing the world to see how the ship approached the asteroid before crashing.

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