Over the past couple weeks, there have been buzz of asteroids colliding with Earth. Predictably, people have been hysterical over whether or not they’ll hit or just fly by. Many were fear mongering that this could finally be the end. Well, we’ve now found out that these “city killers” will just soar right by us, with no crash. How this was found out, is a different story.
To start off, one asteroid, named 2024 YR4, was first spotted by the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System station at Río Hurtado, Chile on December 27, 2024. The asteroid is estimated to be 131 to 295 feet wide, comparable to a large building. If it collides with Earth it’d be a giant regional disaster. 9 days ago this asteroid set the new record for having the highest probability of hitting Earth, 3.1% according to NASA and 2.8% according to ESA. But now, the asteroid has way below a 0% chance of hitting, currently a 0.0017% chance according to NASA and a 0.002% chance according to ESA of hitting Earth in December of 2032. This leaves a 1 in 59,000 possibility it’ll hit and a 99.9983% chance it’ll fly on by us. Although there has been some discussion that the asteroid will hit the moon, with a 1.7% chance, this risk poses no threat to Earth, though.
Anyhow, the other asteroid with a possibility of hitting Earth is the Apophis. This asteroid came before 2024 YR4, and YR4 followed the same trend it did, starting deadly, but quickly dying down to a miniscule threat. It started off as a 1,148 wide threat. It quickly gained astronomers’ attention and tracking. Although its danger soon fizzled down to be another non-threatening asteroid, after astronomers spotted archival observations. Apophis gained its name after becoming a recurring asteroid, being first spotted in 2004 and charted to be on a collision course for 2029, 2036, or 2068. This isn’t too much of a cause for concern, though, as doubtful as that sounds. The fly-by it’ll have in 2029, which will be studied by spacecraft, will not be close enough to collide. The current predicted statistic, 2.7%, will most likely plummet like all other collision statistics will. A lot of things would have to suddenly go bad for it to suddenly change trajectories to crash directly into Earth. So, this asteroid poses no threat at all to Earth for at least this century based on its trajectory.
Despite the myriad of safe statistics, the James Webb Space Telescope will still be observing the 2024 YR4 asteroid for the following months. Even if some people are still fearful of these asteroids hitting, Earth still has a fighting chance. Like previously mentioned, we have planetary defenses. The first test of this was used in 2022 when NASA sent out a spacecraft to collide with an asteroid, which was harmless, and successfully altered its path. It was called NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, DART. While this mission was successful, there’s still room to improve and more to learn about asteroids and what can be done about them.
