About seven years from now, in 2032, an asteroid orbiting the Sun will fly so close to Earth that it has a little over 1 percent chance of impact. The asteroid, named 2024 YR4, stands out as the only near-Earth asteroid out of the over 37,000 currently recognized to have an impact probability above 1 percent.
Scientists calculated this probability after the asteroid was reported on December 27, 2024 at a telescope in Chile belonging to the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), funded by NASA.
Around that time, 2024 YR4 had already made a close approach to our planet at 829,000 kilometers (about 515,116 miles) away, giving scientists a window to estimate when it will return and how likely it is to strike Earth. As of January 30, 2025, it has a 1.2 percent chance to impact Earth on December 22, 2032.
This discovery is nothing to scoff at ...
