[NYPOST] NASA just increased the odds that ''city-killer'' asteroid YR4 2024 will strike our planet in 2032.The space agency claimed that the dangerous space rock now has a 1-in-38, or 2.6%, chance of hitting home — the highest probability of a collision yet, New Scientist has reported.
When the asteroid was initially discovered in December 2024, the odds of a strike clocked in at 1-in-83, before increasing to 1-in-67, to 1-in-53, to 1-in-43 and now, the current frightening figure. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency's odds are slightly lower at around 2.4%.
Since late January, NASA has designated YR4 a level three on the Torino Scale — a standard rubric for the danger of NEOs (Near Earth Objects) that measure over 65 feet in diameter and have a 1% or greater chance of deep impact.
According to the scale, this asteroid is a ''close encounter, meriting attention by astronomers'' and boasts a ''1% or greater chance of collision capable of localized destruction.''
If Earth were to get rocked by YR4 — which measures between 131 and 295 feet in diameter — the resultant energy blast would be equivalent to 8 megatons of TNT, roughly 500 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the Independent reported.
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