Scientists are worried about an asteroid impact that might happen in the year 2032. This one is not a regular space rock and poses an extremely high risk to Earth. The revelation was made by the European Space Agency (ESA) which said that it is closely monitoring Asteroid 2024 YR4 which is about the size of a football pitch. The space agency stated that it has a one in 83 chance of a direct hit and has the potential to cause "severe damage to a local region".
This latest development has alarmed everyone and the matter will come up for discussion at a meeting of the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group, chaired by the ESA, in Vienna in the first week of February. Scientists are already thinking of ways to prevent a catastrophic impact.
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What has everyone even more alarmed is the fact that such an impact only happens once every few thousand years.
The asteroid measures 100 metres by 40 metres and is currently around 27 million miles away from the planet. Right now, it is moving farther away from us. However, the asteroid is due to return later and that is when it will come dangerously close to Earth.
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Experts say that it will cross the Earth's orbit on December 22, 2032, but will most likely miss us by a few thousand miles. However, they are not taking any chances as this is an extremely rare occurrence.
The Space Mission group's Vienna meeting will assess the asteroid and the extent of threat it might pose. If an impact is confirmed, then the observations will be made known to the United Nations.
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The ESA said that if the asteroid is found to pose a danger to the planet, a "spacecraft-based response to the potential hazard" will be initiated.
Watching the dangerous asteroid
Asteroid 2024 YR4 is a near-Earth object and was first spotted by a telescope in Chile. Since the beginning of January, astronomers have been keeping a close watch on it to learn more about how big it is and its movement.
The biggest challenge right now is to monitor the asteroid. As per current observations, it is moving away from Earth and within the next few months, will become invisible. This would make it hard to watch it and gather more data. Astronomers plan on using extremely powerful telescopes to gather as much data as possible about the rock.
Nearly three years later, in 2028, the asteroid will again return to view.
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Scientists will then have only about four years before the scary encounter in the year 2032.
DART Mission
Experts have been preparing for such a scenario for some years now. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission on Sep 26, 2022, smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid named Dimorphos as an experiment to understand how prepared we were if an asteroid were to pose a threat to Earth. This impact changed the course and shape of the asteroid. Scientists would now be hoping to emulate the incident in the next few years to avoid a potential disaster seven years from now.