Asteroid 2024 YR4 could hit one of the world's most populated regions, new NASA data shows
2024 YR4 could likely hit somewhere along a "risk corridor" which NASA has identified as stretching across the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, African, the Arabian Sea, and South Asia.
Cities on this trajectory include Bogota in Colombia, whose metropolitan area is home to over 11.6 million people, the Mumbai metropolitan area in India which has a population of 18.4 million and Dhaka in Bangladesh, home to over 23.9 million.
The US space agency ratcheted up the asteroid's risk of hitting the planet in 2032 to a 3.1 per cent chance, making it the "highest-threat asteroid ever detected".
This is up from the more than 2.3 percent chance warning issued less than two weeks ago.
NASA revised the risk of collision upwards after it collected more information about the asteroid's orbit.
The European Space Agency (ESA) estimates the chance at 2.8 per cent, which is a higher threat level than 2004's Apophis asteroid. It was initially thought it would hit the Earth in 2029 but this theory was dismissed with further research.
What is the 2024 YR4 asteroid?
The asteroid was discovered on December 27, 2024, by a NASA-funded telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, because it had a "close approach" to the Earth on Christmas, according to NASA's Center for NEO Studies (CNEOS).
At the time, scientists said it was hard to predict whether the asteroid would collide with the Earth or not.
While the exact size of the asteroid can't be confirmed yet, scientists estimate that it's likely between 40 to 90 m in size, at its largest estimate around the same height as New York's State of Liberty.
Scientists rated 2024 YR4 at a 3 out of 10 on the Torino Scale, the rubric that CNEOS uses to assess the potential threat level of an asteroid's impact on Earth.
No other observed asteroids have a rating above 0, according to CNEOS.
NASA said on its planetary defence blog that several asteroids have risen on the risk list "and eventually dropped off as more data has come in," meaning that the asteroid could eventually be reclassified as 0 risk.
What happens next?
The agency said it will continue to observe the asteroid until April, after which it will be too far away from the Earth until June 2028.
The risk of collision could either rise or continue to fall during this time, as scientists understand how the Earth will be rotating at the time of impact.
The James Webb Space Telescope will determine the asteroid's exact size in March 2025 to clarify how likely a collision could happen, NASA said.
If the threat level rises, emergency responses around the world will be alerted to the impact risk and given support from ESA's Near Earth Object Coordination Centre, they said in a statement.
Space agencies could also conduct planetary defence missions.
In 2022, NASA's DART mission intentionally collided with the small asteroid Dimorphos and successfully changed its orbital path, the agency said.
ESA launched its Hera mission in October to return to the DART mission crash site on Dimorphos and gather data. This will be used to help form a planetary defence system against future asteroid threats.
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