Asteroid 2024, Size about 40 to 100 meters, it will be very close to Earth in December 2032 and may even hit Earth. Due to its size, speed and possibility of impact, the Internet has given it its nickname “City Destroyer”.
Major space agencies such as the European Space Agency estimate that the probability of YR4 in 2024 is about 2% although the risk figure will be updated as scientists learn more about asteroid paths. Although asteroids are more likely to miss Earth, locations that may be affected by collisions have been identified.
The destructive potential of 2024 depends on its composition, speed and quality. Since the asteroids are still far away, only these characteristics can be estimated, so the consequences of the strike are also somewhat inaccurate at this stage. Currently, astronomers believe that the impact of an air explosion or an air explosion will occur in 2024, which will be equivalent to nearly 8 million tons of TNT, or 500 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. This explosion affects a radius of about 50 kilometers around the impact site.
For the location of the collision, some experts, such as David Rankin, an engineer at NASA's Catalina Sky Survey project, have outlined the “risk corridor.” According to the current path of the asteroid, if the 2% probability becomes reality, the asteroid should land on a group of territories from northern South America, the Pacific, South Asia, the Arabian Sea and Africa. Countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador are all at risk.
The threat posed by asteroids and comets may measure threats that may hit the Earth on the 11-point parcel scale: the higher the score, the greater the risk that the travel space object will affect the Earth and cause a lot of damage. The 2024 asteroid ranks level 3 in Level 3, which means it is large enough and can be passed through the advantages of careful monitoring. However, most international institutions believe that as the asteroid’s trajectory becomes clearer, the risk level drops to zero over time. Initially, the likelihood of an impact was 1.2%. Then, adjust it as much as 2.3% before the latest assessment reduces the risk to 2%.
This is not the first time such an alarm has been raised, and 2024 is not the most dangerous space object to monitor. The asteroid apophis discovered in 2004 sometimes scored higher on the Turin scale and collision probability than in 2024. Shortly after discovering it, it had a 2.7% chance of hitting the planet. But after months of observation, scientists have adjusted the calculations to more realistic value. Now, although it will pass very close to Earth in 2029, the chance of collision is zero.
In response to 2024, the United Nations activated an emergency agreement to protect the planet. Currently, given that the asteroid is on level 3 of the Turin scale, this is limited to continuous monitoring to understand the motion of the asteroid.
Measures have also been taken to protect the Earth from asteroids with destructive potential. These include dynamic strikes, where rockets are sent into space to collide with asteroids to get them out of their collision path with Earth. NASA's 2023 DART mission proves that such strikes can be initiated by testing the technology on a harmless asteroid called Dimorphos and can move space objects.
This story originally appeared in Wired enespañol and has been translated into Spanish.
