🌅 Today’s stat: 2.2%

SOURCE

European Space Agency

WHAT TO KNOW

• The odds that asteroid 2024 YR4 will impact the Earth in December 2032 have roughly doubled over the past week or so, pushing the 200-foot-wide space rock to the top spot on NASA’s Sentry asteroid risk list. Still, astronomers say people shouldn’t worry, as the chance of an impact is expected to fall dramatically—very likely reaching zero—in the near future as we learn more about the asteroid’s orbit.

WHY IT MATTERS

• The European Space Agency says a decision about 2024 YR4 will be made in April, when the current observation window closes (the asteroid won’t be visible again until 2028). Come then, if the chances of an impact don’t fall and the asteroid is still estimated to be larger than 50 meters wide (about 160 feet), a mission to intercept—potentially to deflect the asteroid like NASA’s DART Mission—could be launched.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• While it’s difficult to predict just how much damage an asteroid impact could cause, NASA JPL’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies practices such scenarios every two years, most recently in April 2024. If the estimated size and composition of 2024 YR4 proves to be true (the asteroid is believed to be primarily made of rock rather than metal, making it more likely to explode in the upper atmosphere before reaching the surface), it would be similar to the suspected asteroid that caused the famous Tunguska event in 1908, which flattened 80 million trees over 830 square miles of remote Siberia.