NASA has warned that a ‘city-killer’ asteroid has an increased risk of hitting Earth, with ‘100 million people in the blast zone’.
Asteroid 2024YR4 is hurtling through the galaxy, travelling at 17 kilometres per second – or 38,028 miles per hour – from its current spot in the constellation of Cancer.
It is between 40 and 90 metres long and currently moving away from Earth, but it is expected to loop around and return to the planet by 2032.
The expected track has sparked concern with scientists believing the sizeable chunk of rock could pack a punch equivalent to around 500 atomic bombs.
The latest assessment from NASA increases the probability of impact from 2.2% to 2.6%, translating to a roughly one-in-38 chance of impact.
Officials have warned the probability could increase in the years to come, as space agencies are able to better map the path 2024YR4 is taking.
NASA’s Molly Wasser, Outreach Coordinator for the Goddard Space Flight Center, said it is possible the “impact possibility will continue to rise”.
She said: “As more observations of the asteroid’s orbit are obtained, its impact probability will become better known. It is possible that asteroid 2024 YR4 will be ruled out as an impact hazard… It is also possible its impact probability will continue to rise.”
The European Space Agency projects that, if it does, the asteroid will make landfall just before 9am GMT on December 22 with a “risk corridor” home to more than 100 million people.
David Rankin, an engineer with NASA’s Catalina Sky Survey Project, believes it could land anywhere inside a broad strip that includes the tip of South America, regions in the Pacific Ocean, southern Asia, the Arabian Sea and Africa.
While the strip is large, the asteroid is only expected to be powerful enough to create a 50-kilometre (30-mile) blast zone.
The increase in odds of this impact will alarm people keeping an eye on the asteroid, but the current impact chance could well decrease over the next seven years.
Astronomers assigned a similar 2.7% collision chance to asteroid 99942 Apophis in 2004, but it has since been discounted, with scientists convinced there is no major risk it could make impact in the next century.