The risk of impact from the asteroid YR4 is now close to 0

The asteroid, which could potentially devastate a city, set a record for impact risk, reaching 3.1% in mid-February according to NASA, and 2.8% according to ESA

The probability of impact has now dropped to 0.004%, reports NASA.

The risk of impact from an asteroid rarely exceeds the margin of 1%. The probability, although low, had placed 2024 YR4 under close observation.

Diverse factors influence its trajectory, such as the gravity of planets and other celestial bodies.

The European Space Agency emphasized that the observations of the asteroid “followed a well-known pattern”, with an impact probability that first increases, then rapidly decreases to zero after additional observations.

2024 YR4 was detected on December 27, 2024, with a telescope from an observatory in Chile. About the size of a football field, it travels at a speed approximately 15 times greater than that of a high-velocity bullet.

At the time of its discovery, it was about 800,000 kilometers away from our planet, which is twice the distance that separates us from the Moon. It is currently moving away from the Earth but will return in 2028.

According to experts, the impact could have occurred in a large area extending from the east of the Pacific Ocean to the north of South America, including the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Arabian Sea, and South Asia.

If 2024 YR4 had struck the Earth, it would have been similar to the impact of the Tunguska asteroid in 1908. According to NASA, on June 30, 1908, an asteroid with an estimated diameter of about 40 meters exploded in the sky above Siberia.