00:00Asteroid 2024 YR4 was only just discovered on Christmas Day last year, flying uncomfortably
00:10close to our planet, just 500,000 miles away.
00:13That's roughly twice the distance of the Earth to the Moon, but extremely close in
00:17cosmic terms.
00:18Now experts say in 2032 it may come even closer and has a slim chance of colliding with our
00:23planet.
00:24Asteroid 2024 YR4 is between 130 and 330 feet in diameter, so not world-ending, but
00:31certainly catastrophic if it were to hit a populated area.
00:34So how likely will it collide?
00:35Well head of NASA's Near Earth Object Studies says it's just over a 1% chance.
00:40The asteroid is currently moving away from us and experts anticipate further calculations
00:44may lower its impact risk to zero.
00:46They are also looking at old sky survey images in an attempt to find it within those, hoping
00:50to get better trajectory data to refine those predictions.
00:53Still, the European Space Agency ranks it the highest risk asteroid currently under
00:57observation.
00:58Experts say that if this asteroid made landfall, it would hit with the same explosive power
01:02of a 50 to 100 megaton nuclear weapon, rivaling the largest one humans have ever detonated.
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