On December 27, 2024, the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ALERT) in Chile discovered an asteroid known as “2024 YRF.” Because of its size, speed, and potential to strike Earth soon, people online are calling it a “city destroyer.” India is one of the nations it is monitoring.
With an estimated width of 40 to 90 meters, 2024 YR4 has a 2% chance of striking Earth on December 22, 2032. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California’s Dr Paul Chodas says this size range is similar to a large building.
The impact would take place anywhere along a “risk corridor,” which spans the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern South America, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Arabian Sea, and South Asia, according to NASA, should 2024 YR4 be on a collision trajectory. Consequently, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador are a few of the nations that might be on the asteroid’s path.
According to NASA, if 2024 YR4 collides, it will do so at a high speed of nearly 17 kilometres per second, or 38,000 miles per hour. At about 40 meters, the impact would be “something like an air blast,” meaning that there wouldn’t be much damage other than some windows breaking, space journalist Kate Arkless Grey told the BBC.
As of right now, 2024 YR4 is rated at Torino Scale 3, which is unusual for an asteroid. Because there is a 1% or higher possibility of a collision with an asteroid of this magnitude, one that is severe enough to cause localised destruction, astronomers refer to this level as a “close encounter meriting attention.”
The 2024 YR4 is currently 48 million kilometres (30 million miles) from Earth as of January 31, 2025, and it is continuing on its outbound orbit around the Sun. In 2028, it will make a safe return to Earth’s neighbourhood after completing its orbit around the Sun.