NASA has delivered a significant update on the ‘city-destroying’ asteroid that has been speeding toward Earth – and the latest news is reassuring.
After months of increasing concerns, the space organization has now confirmed that asteroid 2024 YR4 has an almost zero likelihood of colliding with our planet in 2032.
According to NASA’s Sentry impact tracking system, the probability of the asteroid striking Earth on December 22, 2032, now stands at just one in 26,000.
Fortunately, this translates to a 99.9961 per cent chance that the massive rock will safely bypass our planet.
This announcement comes as a relief to planetary defense teams, which have been evaluating whether the asteroid posed enough of a threat to consider deflection measures.
Before this recent downgrade, 2024 YR4 caused significant alarm at global space agencies as its impact probability reached a high of one-in-32, or 3.1 per cent, last week.
As the most ‘hazardous’ asteroid ever observed, 2024 YR4 briefly held a rare score of three on the Torino Scale, a system used to gauge Near-Earth Object (NEO) threats.
Now, following its revised impact probability, the asteroid’s Torino rating has dropped to zero—meaning it is no longer deemed a risk to our planet.
After its discovery in December, asteroid 2024 YR4 quickly climbed to the top of NASA’s and the European Space Agency’s list of potentially hazardous space objects.
Early calculations of its trajectory suggested a slight chance that the NEO could make a dangerously close approach to Earth within the next decade.
On January 27, 2024 YR4 became a growing concern when it stood out as the only sizable asteroid with an impact probability exceeding one per cent.
Its collision odds kept rising throughout February, reaching a peak probability of one-in-32 last week.
With an estimated size of 54 meters (177ft)—roughly the height of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square—a direct impact from 2024 YR4 would have been devastating.
NASA estimates that if it had struck, the asteroid could have released energy equivalent to eight megatons of TNT—over 500 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb.
Experts suggest the explosion would have been comparable to the Tunguska Event, which flattened 830 square miles (2,150 square km) of Siberian forest in 1908—an area twice the size of New York City.
Had it hit a populated region, the consequences could have been catastrophic, potentially resulting in millions of casualties.
However, after peaking, the impact probability has now dropped significantly.
By February 21, the asteroid’s collision risk had fallen to just one-in-360, or 0.28 per cent.
Following additional observations over the weekend, NASA has now further lowered that probability to an extremely minimal 0.0039 per cent.
With a new Torino Rating of zero, NASA officially no longer considers 2024 YR4 a threat to Earth.
Professor Richard Binzel, planetary scientist at MIT and creator of the Torino Scale, explained: “Torino Scale Zero signals the ‘all clear’ as further tracking refines the asteroid’s orbit, lowering its collision possibility below the 1-in-1000 threshold required for downgrading.”
In fact, Professor Binzel explains that this sharp probability decline is “precisely the expected outcome” for an asteroid like 2024 YR4.
When astronomers study an asteroid’s motion, they don’t determine an exact path but rather estimate possible trajectories with a significant margin of error.
With just initial measurements, this margin is large, and Earth represents only a small portion of the uncertainty zone, keeping probability low.
As additional observations refine the asteroid’s path, the uncertainty zone narrows, increasing Earth’s presence within it, which explains the rising probability.
Eventually, the uncertainty zone shrinks enough that Earth is excluded, causing the impact probability to rapidly decrease toward zero.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 follows an elliptical orbit around the Sun—meaning it is elongated rather than perfectly circular.
At present, it is relatively near Earth—approximately 30 million miles away—allowing NASA’s telescopes to track it in the night sky.
The asteroid is currently moving farther as it begins its solar orbit, but by December 2032, it is expected to pass extremely close to Earth—or, initially feared, even collide.
These fluctuating probabilities result from the asteroid’s multi-million mph movement through space, which becomes harder to pinpoint when bright moonlight interferes with observations.
With sufficient tracking data now collected from astronomers worldwide, Earth is no longer within the asteroid’s uncertainty zone, reducing the impact risk to near zero.
Looking ahead, Professor Binzel predicts that identifying objects with similar risk profiles to 2024 YR4 will become more frequent.
However, this doesn’t mean Earth faces greater danger but rather that improved telescopes will enhance NEO detection capabilities.
Professor Binzel states: “The key takeaway is that objects the size of YR4 harmlessly pass through the Earth-Moon region several times a year.
“This implies that low-rated Torino Scale asteroids will be a regular discovery—of interest to astronomers and space enthusiasts but not necessarily alarming.
“Instead of creating fear, detecting these objects and refining their orbits makes us more confident that any significant asteroid is unlikely to take us by surprise.”
