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The Odds of a City-Killing Asteroid Hitting Earth Keep Rising


The likelihood of 2024 YR4 colliding with the our planet in 2032 have ticked up to over 3 percent. Is it time to start worrying?

To understand why the odds from NASA are changing and whether we should be concerned about 2024 YR4, Ars connected with Robin George Andrews, author of the recently published book How to Kill an Asteroid. However, even as the rock zips farther away from Earth, certain telescopes are still managing to spy it and extend our knowledge of the asteroid’s orbital arc around the sun. Some rather clever scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (which has a superb planetary defense contingent) worked out that, for a 90-meter asteroid, you need 10 years to confidently deflect it with a kinetic impactor to prevent an Earth impact.

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