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This Is Where Asteroid 2024 YR4 Could Strike
There is a 2 percent chance that seven years from now, “the city destroyer” will hit Earth with the force of an 8-megaton nuclear weapon. Here are its possible impact points.
Currently, astronomers believe 2024 YR4 would create an airburst—or mid-air explosion—upon impact that would be equivalent to nearly 8 million tons of TNT, or 500 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. For the location of the collision, some experts, such as David Rankin, an engineer with NASA’s Catalina Sky Survey Project, have sketched out a “risk corridor.” According to the asteroid’s current path, and if the 2 percent probability becomes reality, the asteroid should fall somewhere in a band of territory stretching from northern South America, across the Pacific Ocean, to southern Asia, the Arabian Sea, and Africa. NASA’s 2023 DART mission proved that such strikes can be launched and that they can move space objects, by testing this technique on a harmless asteroid called Dimorphos.
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