Which countries and regions can be affected by Asteroid 2024 YR4?

Asteroid 2024 YR4, Measurement of about 40 to 100 meters wide will pass very close to the ground in December 2032 – and maybe even beat the planet. Due to its size, speed and the possibility of influencing, the Internet has given it the nickname “by destroyer.”

Large aerospace agencies, such as European Space Agencyestimates that there is about a 2 percent chance that 2024 YR4 will hit the soil, although this risk drop is updated when scientists learn more about the path of asteroid. While it is far more likely that the asteroid will miss the soil, places that may be affected by a collision have already been identified.

The destructive potential of 2024 YR4 depends on its composition, speed and mass. As the asteroid is still very far away, these properties can only be estimated and the consequences of a strike are therefore also somewhat inaccurate predictions at this time. Currently, astronomers believe that 2024 YR4 would create an Airburst or in the middle of the air-the absorbed influence that would be equivalent with almost 8 million tons of TNT, or 500 times the power of the nuclear bomb fell on Hiroshima. This explosion would affect about a 50 kilometer radius around the impact site.

For the location of the collision, some experts, such as David Rankin, have an engineer at NASA’s Catalina Sky Survey project, drawn a “risk corridor.” According to the current path of the asteroid, and if the 2 percent probability becomes reality, the asteroid must fall somewhere in a band with territory extending from northern South America, across the Pacific, to southern Asia, the Arabian Sea and Africa. Countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador would be in danger.

The threat of asteroids and comets that can potentially beat soil be measured on 11-point Torino scale: The higher the score, the greater the risk of a travel space object affecting the soil and causing large amounts of destruction. The 2024 YR4 aasteroid is current ranked at level 3, which means it is large enough and will pass close enough to carefully monitor. However, most international agencies are sure that the level of risk will fall over time to zero when the asteroid’s orbit becomes clearer. Originally, the probability of influence was 1.2 percent. It was then adjusted up to 2.3 percent before the latest assessment reduced the risk to 2 percent.

This is not the first time such a warning has been raised, nor 2024 YR4 the most risky space object that has been monitored. The asteroid Apophiswhich was discovered in 2004, sometimes scored higher than 2024 years on both the Torino scale and the collision probability. Shortly after it was discovered, it got a 2.7 percent chance of hitting the ground. After a few months and with better observations, however, researchers adjusted their calculations to more realistic values. Although it will pass very close to the ground in 2029, the chances of collision are zero.

In response to 2024 YR4, the UN has activated an emergency protocol to protect the planet. For the time being, given that the asteroid is at level 3 of the Turin scale, this is limited to continuous monitoring to understand the movements of the asteroid.

Measures are also being developed to protect the soil from asteroids with destructive potential. These include kinetic strikes where rockets are sent out into space to collide with asteroids, to divert them from a collision path with the ground. NASA’s 2023 Dart Mission proved that such strikes can be launched and that they can move space objects by testing this technique on a harmless asteroid called Dimorphos.

This story originally appeared on Cable an Español and has been translated from Spanish.