Will This Asteroid Wipe Out A City? NASA Says Maybe As Odds Continue To Rise

Images, analysis, and potential impacts

(By NASA/JPL — https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=2024%20YR4&view=VOP, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=158655081)

What would happen if an asteroid hit a major city? It is a harrowing thought but one that doesn’t cross many minds. Asteroid strikes on Earth are extremely rare, but they happen with rhythmic regularity throughout history. The next asteroid with the chance to impact Earth is a rock by the name of 2024 YR4. This space rock is the largest asteroid with a chance to hit the planet in the near future.

Discovered just last year, 2024 YR4 has drawn the eyes of the astronomy community around the world. Both NASA and the ESA are monitoring the rock closely. But as they continue to track the asteroid as it sails around the sun, the odds of it impacting the Earth continue to creep up. They began at 1%, then jumped to 1.6%, and now stand between 2% and 2.4%. Those numbers are not large, but they are significantly higher than the typical asteroid, which usually has chances at or near 0%.

(By Phoenix7777 — Own workData source: HORIZONS System, JPL, NASA, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=159089626)

The asteroid was discovered just weeks ago, in December of 2024, so preliminary data remains low. The size is estimated to be between 130 and 300 feet in…