Newly discovered asteroid 2024 YR4 may hit Earth in 2032. How worried should you be? | Current Affairs | Vision IAS

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Newly discovered asteroid 2024 YR4 may hit Earth in 2032. How worried should you be?

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Newly Discovered Asteroid 2024 YR4

A newly discovered asteroid, 2024 YR4, has a slightly more than 1% chance of colliding with Earth in 2032. Despite the low probability, it has garnered attention.

Discovery and Characteristics

  • 2024 YR4 was discovered in December by a Chilean telescope.
  • The asteroid is comparable in size to a football field, measuring 40 to 100 meters across.
  • It passed within 800,000 kilometers of Earth on Christmas Day.
  • Scientists have until mid-April to analyze its path and size before it becomes too faint.

Potential Destruction

  • Rated 3 on the Torino Scale, which categorizes an object's destruction potential.
  • Expected to release 8 to 10 megatons of energy if it crashes.
  • For comparison, the Chelyabinsk asteroid released energy equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT.

Frequency of Asteroid Collisions

  • Thousands of small asteroids enter Earth's atmosphere daily, often burning up without causing damage.
  • Large, potentially disastrous asteroids strike Earth much less frequently.
  • Asteroids larger than a kilometer could cause global disasters every 260 million years.

Space Agencies' Defense Plans

Space agencies, including NASA, are developing planetary defense mechanisms to prevent asteroid collisions.

  • The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was NASA's first planetary defense mission.
  • In 2022, a DART spacecraft successfully altered the trajectory of the asteroid Dimorphos.
  • Tags :
  • Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)
  • Torino Scale
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