Newly discovered asteroid may hit Earth in 2032

The European Space Agency and Nasa have found that an asteroid named 2024 YR4 has a 1.2% chance of hitting our planet on December 22, 2032.

According to Esa and Nasa, it also means the space rock has a nearly 99% chance of safely passing by Earth in 2032, reported CNN.

Scientists can be helped by the future observations of the asteroid in order to determine the likelihood of an impact.

The asteroid is estimated to be between 131 and 328 feet (40 and 100 metres) wide. Every few thousand years, asteroids of this size impact Earth and they can cause severe damage to local regions, according to the Esa.

The space rock has a “size range comparable to that of a large building,” said Dr Paul Chodas, who is the director for the Centre for Near Earth Object Studies, or CNEOS, at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Chodas added that the actual size of the asteroid, which astronomers are trying to determine with follow-up observations using multiple telescopes, is currently highly uncertain.

“If the asteroid turns out to be on the large end of its estimated size range, the impact could produce blast damage as far as 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the impact site,”

Chodas said: “But that’s in the unlikely event that it might impact at all. The potential for damage arises because of the incredibly high speed (about 17 kilometres per second, or 38,028 miles per hour) at which the asteroid would enter the atmosphere.”