Asteroid 2024 YR4 could hit Earth in 7 years. Here's what could happen — and what's being done about it
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
A recently discovered asteroid, named 2024 YR4, has a 2.8% to 3.1% chance of hitting Earth in 2032, according to NASA and the European Space Agency. While the odds of an impact are slim, astronomers are closely tracking the space rock to uncover more details — a process that could soon involve the most powerful observatory ever launched into space.
Not much is known about 2024 YR4, but the asteroid is estimated to be 131 to 295 feet (40 to 90 meters) wide, a 'size range comparable to that of a large building,' said Dr. Paul Chodas, manager for the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, or CNEOS, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
That's not even close to the size of the 'planet-killer' asteroid that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago and led to the extinction of dinosaurs. That one was estimated to be about 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) in diameter and marked the last known large asteroid to hit our world. Planet killer asteroids are space rocks that are 1 kilometer across or larger and could have a devastating effect on life.
But smaller asteroids can cause regional devastation if they are determined to be on a collision course with Earth, which is why astronomers need to find out as much as possible — as soon as possible — about 2024 YR4.
Acquiring more data, like refining the space rock's trajectory, may reduce the odds of a direct hit to zero. But astronomers only have a certain amount of time to observe the asteroid before it fades from view in April. Now, they're planning to turn the powerful eye of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2024 YR4's direction with the hopes of pinning down the space rock's size and orbit.
The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, first discovered 2024 YR4 on December 27. The telescope is one of the asteroid discovery programs funded by NASA to scan the sky in search of near-Earth asteroids, said Davide Farnocchia, navigation engineer at JPL and CNEOS, via email.
The size estimate of the asteroid has changed very little since then, despite multiple observations using an array of telescopes, because the space rock can only be studied using the amount of sunlight it reflects. The amount of light reflected by the asteroid's surface is used to estimate how big it is.
However, the Webb telescope, slated to begin observations of 2024 YR4 in early March, sees the universe in infrared light. Webb will be able to measure the heat reflected by the asteroid and provide a much more accurate size estimate, according to a Nature study published in December.
Since early January, astronomers have used the Magdalena Ridge Observatory in New Mexico, the Danish Telescope and the Very Large Telescope in Chile to track the asteroid, which is currently more than 30 million miles (48 million kilometers) from Earth and moving farther away over time, Farnocchia said. The celestial object should be visible through early April and disappear as it continues its orbit around the sun.
Observatories in Hawaii are also actively tracking the asteroid. The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, or Pan-STARRS, located on the Haleakalā volcano in Maui, is the world's leading near-Earth object discovery telescope. Capable of spotting asteroids when they're distant from Earth, Pan-STARRS is currently part of the effort to follow 2024 YR4's movements.
'Hawaiʻi's telescopes are some of the most important tools for planetary defense,' said Doug Simons, director at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, in a statement. 'Thanks to our prime location and advanced technology, we can spot, track, and study asteroids with incredible accuracy. That gives scientists the time they need to evaluate potential threats and figure out the best ways to respond.'
Webb will still be able to observe 2024 YR4 once the asteroid is beyond the viewing capabilities of Earth-based telescopes, providing measurements of the asteroid's position, according to the European Space Agency. After the initial observations in March, a second observation campaign has been planned for May. Scientists will use that data to provide the final measurements of the asteroid's orbit, as well as how its temperature has changed as it moves farther from the sun.
If 2024 YR4 disappears from view before space agencies can rule out any chance of impact, the space rock will remain on the risk list until it is back in view in June 2028. Current estimates of the asteroid's orbit suggest it returns to Earth's vicinity every four years, but it won't pose a threat in 2028, according to the University of Hawaii.
Understanding the exact size of the asteroid can help astronomers to estimate the risks if 2024 YR4 is determined to be on a future collision course with Earth.
'If the asteroid turns out to be on the large end of its estimated size range, the impact could produce blast damage as far as 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the impact site,' Chodas said. 'But that's in the unlikely event that it might impact at all. The potential for damage arises because of the incredibly high speed (about 17 kilometers per second, or 38,028 miles per hour) at which the asteroid would enter the atmosphere.'
Asteroids of this size impact Earth every few thousand years, and they can cause severe damage to local regions, according to the ESA.
In 1908, a 30-meter-wide (98-foot-wide) asteroid struck the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in a remote Siberian forest of Russia, according to the Planetary Society. The event leveled trees and destroyed forests across 830 square miles (2,150 square kilometers).
And in 2013, a 20-meter-wide (66-foot-wide) asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia. It exploded in the air, releasing 20 to 30 times more energy than that of the first atomic bomb, generating brightness greater than the sun, exuding heat, damaging more than 7,000 buildings and injuring more than 1,000 people.
But if 2024 YR4 is on the larger end, the effects could be significantly worse, according to the ESA.
'If the asteroid is found to have a diameter in the (50 meter) range, and if it can be confirmed that it is a rocky asteroid, the effects would be similar to those of the Tunguska impact in 1908, where a surface area of (2,000 square kilometers) was devastated and 20 million trees were affected,' according to a document shared by the agency. 'This is equivalent to the area of a circle (25 kilometers) in diameter. If larger, the effects would extend to several tens of (kilometers).'
About 3,000 new near-Earth objects are found each year, but it's been more difficult to find asteroids within the size range of 2024 YR4 because they're dark, smaller and harder to spot with telescopes. Scientists estimate that there are about 600,000 rocky objects similar in size to the asteroid, but only about 2%, or 12,000, have been found, according to the ESA.
'Tiny asteroids do hit the Earth all the time, disintegrating in the atmosphere as fireballs; fortunately small ones cause little damage on the ground,' said Larry Denneau, an astronomer at University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy and coprincipal investigator at the ATLAS telescope, in a statement. 'Larger asteroids can cause much more damage, but they impact the Earth much less frequently. There are still many large ones out there that we haven't found yet, which is why we are continuously monitoring the whole sky to ensure that we stay ahead of potential threats.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
10 hours ago
- CNN
New tech reveals never-before-seen details in solar corona
A breakthrough in adaptive optics technology captured the clearest images to date of the sun's corona. The incredible resolution of the new images could provide new insights on some of the mysteries surrounding our star.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
NASA orbiter saw something astonishing peek through Martian clouds
NASA's longest-running Mars mission has sent back an unprecedented side view of a massive volcano rising above the Red Planet, just before dawn. On May 2, as sunlight crept over the Martian horizon, the Odyssey spacecraft captured Arsia Mons, a towering, long-extinct volcano, puncturing a glowing band of greenish haze in the planet's upper atmosphere. The 12-mile-high volcano — nearly twice the height of Mauna Loa in Hawaii — punctures a veil of fog, emerging like a monument to the planet's ancient past. The space snapshot is both visually arresting and scientifically enlightening. "We picked Arsia Mons hoping we would see the summit poke above the early morning clouds," said Jonathon Hill, who leads Odyssey's camera operations at Arizona State University, in a statement, "and it didn't disappoint." SEE ALSO: An enormous Martian cloud returns every spring. Scientists found out why. Arsia Mons sits at the southern end of a towering trio of volcanoes called the Tharsis Montes. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech To get this view, Odyssey had to do something it wasn't originally built for. The orbiter, which has been flying around Mars since 2001, usually points its camera straight down to map the planet's surface. But over the past two years, scientists have begun rotating the spacecraft 90 degrees to look toward the horizon. That adjustment allows NASA to study how dust and ice clouds change over the seasons. Though the image is still an aerial view, the vantage point is of the horizon, similar to how astronauts can see Earth's horizon 250 miles above the planet on the International Space Station. From that altitude, Earth doesn't fill their entire view — there's enough distance and perspective for them to see the planet's curved edge meeting the blackness of space. Odyssey flies above Mars at about the same altitude. Arsia Mons sits at the southern end of a towering trio of volcanoes called the Tharsis Montes. The Tharsis region is home to the largest volcanoes in the solar system. The lack of plate tectonics on the Red Planet allowed them to grow many times larger than those anywhere on Earth. Together, they dominate the Martian landscape and are sometimes covered in clouds, especially in the early hours. But not just any clouds — these are made of water ice, a different breed than the planet's more common carbon dioxide clouds. Arsia Mons is the cloudiest of the three. Scientists have recently studied a particular, localized cloud formation that occurs over the mountain, dubbed the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud. The transient feature, streaking 1,100 miles over southern Mars, lasts only about three hours in the morning during spring before vanishing in the warm sunlight. It's formed by strong winds being forced up the mountainside. The cloudy canopy on display in Odyssey's new image, according to NASA, is called the aphelion cloud belt. This widespread seasonal system drapes across the planet's equator when Mars is farthest from the sun. This is Odyssey's fourth side image since 2023, and it is the first to show a volcano breaking through the clouds. "We're seeing some really significant seasonal differences in these horizon images," said Michael D. Smith, a NASA planetary scientist, in a statement. "It's giving us new clues to how Mars' atmosphere evolves over time."
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
NASA's Parker Solar Probe spots powerful magnetic explosion aimed at the sun's surface
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. While making a death-defying dive through the sun's atmosphere, NASA's Parker Solar Probe has directly recorded a powerful plasma explosion heading toward our star's surface in unprecedented detail. Parker's new measurements found protons with about 1000 times greater energy than expected and a plasma jet shooting toward the sun, not away from it. Parker was uniquely positioned between the sun and the particles' source, allowing scientists to easily figure out where they came from. These findings indicate that the complexity and strength of tangles in the sun's magnetic field can accelerate charged particles to much greater speeds than expected from the field's strength alone. The sunward plasma jet was caused by "magnetic reconnection" in the sun's atmosphere — the explosive process in which magnetic fields fracture and reconnect. The powerful phenomenon transforms energy stored in the sun's magnetic field into energy that accelerates the solar wind — the constant stream of charged particles that the sun blasts across the solar system. Understanding magnetic reconnection is critical for making better predictions about space weather, which is driven by the solar wind and other energetic outbursts from our star. Space weather is a primary suspect for what stripped away Mars' atmosphere, turning it from a habitable planet into an icy desert wasteland. On Earth, space weather can trigger geomagnetic storms that cause blackouts, damage satellites, interfere with radio and GPS signals, and even put astronauts at risk. On the bright side, it also gives Earth its signature glorious auroras. The sun's magnetic field is extremely powerful, complex and dynamic. Space weather predictions require complicated computer simulations based on equations that describe how magnetic fields behave — but the sun is so large and convoluted that these equations will always be approximations. To improve the models' accuracy, scientists must collect extremely detailed measurements of the sun. This is where the Parker Solar Probe comes in. The Parker Solar Probe is the first mission to fly into the sun's upper atmosphere, called the corona. It has been directly measuring magnetic fields and particles in and around the corona in unprecedented detail, providing scientific insight into the heliosphere (the sun's atmosphere, which encompasses the entire solar system in a massive, elongated bubble). Related: NASA's daredevil solar spacecraft survives 2nd close flyby of our sun "These findings indicate that magnetic reconnection … is an important source of energetic particles in the near-Sun solar wind," lead study author Mihir Desai, director of the Southwest Research Institute's Department of Space Research, said in a statement. "Everywhere there are magnetic fields there will be magnetic reconnection. But the Sun's magnetic fields are much stronger near the star, so there's a lot more stored energy to be released." Understanding the workings of magnetic reconnection events could help scientists better predict harmful space weather, the researchers said. RELATED STORIES —New 8K-resolution photos of the sun show off incredible details of raging sunspots —Space photo of the week: Pink 'raindrops' on the sun captured in greatest detail ever —Powerful Mother's Day geomagnetic storm created radio-disrupting bubbles in Earth's upper atmosphere "Reports from the American Meteorological Society indicated that the powerful solar events in May 2024 wreaked havoc with farmers when extreme geomagnetic storms disrupted the precise GPS-guided navigation systems used to plant, fertilize and harvest rows of seeds, causing an estimated loss of up to $500 million in earning potential," Desai said. "Parker's access to this new data is critical, particularly as we remain in the midst of a very active solar cycle." The latest measurements of magnetic reconnection, reported in a paper published May 29 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, are one of many new discoveries Parker has made. In 2023, over 700 peer-reviewed scientific papers were published using data collected in the probe's first four years of operation, and there are still many more discoveries to be made. The spacecraft completed its second ultra-close flyby of the sun on March 22, zooming within 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of the sun's surface — matching its own record from December 2024.
