'City-killer' asteroid YR4 on collision course for Earth, but what are the odds?

Australian Community Media

A newly discovered city-killer asteroid is keeping astronomers on high alert as its odds of striking Earth in 2032 continue to shift. This video includes ACM-produced voiceover powered by AI.

Transcript

00:00If it hit a city it would completely obliterate a very large city.

00:04A newly discovered city killer asteroid is keeping astronomers on high alert

00:08as its odds of striking Earth in 2032 continue to shift. First spotted in December 2024,

00:16asteroid 2024 YR4 measures between 40 and 100 metres wide and could release 500 times the energy

00:25of the Hiroshima bomb if it impacts.

00:27There's a statistical chance that this asteroid might hit the Earth and the current probability

00:33of that is about 2%. Scientists have mapped a potential impact corridor stretching from

00:38South America to India covering an estimated 100 million people. Initial calculations gave

00:44the asteroid a 1.3% chance of hitting Earth but that jumped to 3.2% before settling at 1.5%.

00:53Experts say the risk is expected to fluctuate as they refine its orbit with more precise predictions

00:59expected by 2028. For now the odds still favour a near miss but astronomers worldwide are watching

01:05closely. The most likely outcome is that it will not hit and so nobody's panicking yet. Right now

01:10we're collecting data, collecting ideas about what we would do about this thing as we learn

01:15more about it. Nobody's hitting the panic button yet.

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