Renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has issued a stark warning about the "mansion-sized asteroid" that has a "one-in-fifty chance" of hitting Earth in the next eight years.  

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Taking to X on Saturday (Feb 15), he wrote: "At the moment, mansion-sized Asteroid 2024-YR4 has a one-in-fifty chance of hitting Earth in the next eight years. Now might be a bad time to reduce spending on Science. Just sayin."

His warning comes as NASA recently nearly doubled the probability of the space rock hitting our planet.

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What is the probability of a collision?

The 130-to-300-foot-wide space rock, which NASA first flagged as a potential threat in December 2024, now carries a '2.3 per cent chance' of directly hitting Earth when it makes its closest approach on December 22, 2032—nearly double the probability originally estimated.  

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A scientific crisis and Trump's funding cuts

Despite the low probability of impact, astronomers are monitoring 2024-YR4 closely. Keeping an eye on such extra-terrestrial threats requires major scientific resources. Following his inauguration, US President Donald Trump has launched a spate of budget cuts, including in space research.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), the largest funder of nonmedical research in the US, froze all new grant approvals last month (January 2025) following an executive order from Trump. The agency, as per the report, has since been told to prepare to lose half its staff and two-thirds of its funding, while other federal science agencies face similar threats.  

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What happens if the asteroid hits?

NASA's telescopes first spotted 2024-YR4 27 million miles away, immediately placing it at the top of the agency's Sentry risk list, which tracks Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) that could collide with our planet.  

If it collides with Earth, scientists warn of devastating consequences. The impact would unleash energy equivalent to 7.7 megatons of TNT, carving a 3,000-foot-wide crater in the ground. This as per Daily Mail means the explosion would have a force 500 times greater than the Hiroshima atomic bomb dropped during World War II.  

2024-YR4 is now classified as a 'city-killer,' because shockwaves radiating from an impact would wipe out a major city, warn experts.

Speaking on British radio station LBC News, former astronaut Chris Hadfield said because of the way it reflects light they believe that the asteroid was likely a "stony asteroid". This makes it significantly more dangerous than objects that break apart in the atmosphere, meaning it would likely hit Earth's surface in one piece, he explained.  

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Hadfield warned that, upon impact, it would send rock fragments shooting at over 10 miles per second, faster than the International Space Station orbits Earth. If it hits land, the explosion could flatten an entire city. 

If it explodes mid-air—like the Tunguska asteroid of 1908, which wiped out 80 million trees over 830 square miles of Siberian forest and reportedly killed three people—it could be equally catastrophic.  

Based on current calculations, NASA has mapped a "risk corridor", identifying potential impact zones. The asteroid's path currently stretches from South America across the Atlantic, through sub-Saharan Africa, over the Arabian Sea, and into India. However, this could change as more data is collected.

(With inputs from agencies)