{"id":21156,"date":"2025-01-29T22:46:46","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T23:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=21156"},"modified":"2025-01-30T00:30:31","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T00:30:31","slug":"asteroid-2024-yr4-could-strike-earth-researchers-say-but-the-odds-are-small","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=21156","title":{"rendered":"Asteroid 2024 YR4 Could Strike Earth, Researchers Say, But the Odds are Small"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Researchers say there\u2019s a 1.3 percent chance that the space rock 2024 YR4 could strike our planet \u2014 but not until December 2032.<\/p>\n

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You may hear about a large asteroid headed toward Earth. Don\u2019t panic.<\/p>\n

Just after Christmas Day, astronomers spotted something zipping away from Earth: a rock somewhere between 130 feet and 330 feet long that they named 2024 YR4. Over the next few weeks, they simulated its possible future orbits. They now say, based on the most up-to-date information, that there is a 1.3 percent chance<\/a> that this asteroid will strike somewhere on Earth on Dec. 22, 2032.<\/p>\n

Should this keep you up at night?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, absolutely not,\u201d said David Rankin<\/a>, a comet and asteroid spotter at the University of Arizona.<\/p>\n

The object\u2019s current odds of striking Earth may sound scary \u2014 and it\u2019s fair to say that an asteroid in this size range has the potential to cause harm. Should it strike a city, the damage would not cause anything close to a mass extinction, but the damage to the city itself would be catastrophic.<\/p>\n

But a 1.3 percent chance of a hit is also a 98.7 percent chance of a miss. \u201cIt\u2019s not a number you want to ignore, but it\u2019s not a number you need to lose sleep over,\u201d Mr. Rankin said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And the odds may diminish over time, as astronomers gather new data about the object.<\/p>\n

For now, experts say, calm is warranted. The asteroid has been spotted several years ahead of its close shave with Earth \u2014 and that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe international systems we\u2019re putting in place to find, track and characterize \u2014 and, if it comes to it, mitigate the impacts of \u2014 hazardous asteroids and comets are working as intended,\u201d said Andy Rivkin<\/a>, an astronomer and planetary defense researcher at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.<\/p>\n

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Researchers say there\u2019s a 1.3 percent chance that the space rock 2024 YR4 could strike our planet \u2014 but not until December 2032.You may hear about a large asteroid headed toward Earth. Don\u2019t panic.Just after Christmas Day, astronomers spotted something zipping away from Earth: a rock somewhere between 130 feet and 330 feet long that they named 2024 YR4. Over the next few weeks, they simulated its possible future orbits. They now say, based on the most up-to-date information, that there is a 1.3 percent chance that this asteroid will strike somewhere on Earth on Dec. 22, 2032.Should this keep you up at night?\u201cNo, absolutely not,\u201d said David Rankin, a comet and asteroid spotter at the University of Arizona.The object\u2019s current odds of striking Earth may sound scary \u2014 and it\u2019s fair to say that an asteroid in this size range has the potential to cause harm. Should it strike a city, the damage would not cause anything close to a mass extinction, but the damage to the city itself would be catastrophic.But a 1.3 percent chance of a hit is also a 98.7 percent chance of a miss. \u201cIt\u2019s not a number you want to ignore, but it\u2019s not a number you need to lose sleep over,\u201d Mr. Rankin said.And the odds may diminish over time, as astronomers gather new data about the object.For now, experts say, calm is warranted. The asteroid has been spotted several years ahead of its close shave with Earth \u2014 and that\u2019s a good thing.\u201cThe international systems we\u2019re putting in place to find, track and characterize \u2014 and, if it comes to it, mitigate the impacts of \u2014 hazardous asteroids and comets are working as intended,\u201d said Andy Rivkin, an astronomer and planetary defense researcher at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21158,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21159,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21156\/revisions\/21159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}