Asteroids 2024 YR4, Measuring about 40 to 100 meters wide, will pass very close to the Earth in December 2032 and can even attack the planet. Due to its size, speed and ability to create its impact, the Internet has given it nicknamed the city destroyer.
Large space agencies, such as European Space AgencyIt is estimated that about 2 % of the chance that 2024 years will attack the Earth, although this risk will be updated when scientists learn more about the path of asteroid. Although it is more likely Asteroid Will miss the earth, websites can be affected by a identified collision.
The potential of destruction in 2024 years depends on its composition, speed and mass. Because the asteroid is still very far, these features can only be estimated, and the consequences of a strike are therefore somewhat accurate in this period. Currently, astronomers believe that 2024 YR4 will create an impact of Airburst or between the air or between the impacts equivalent to nearly 8 million tons of TNT, or 500 times the power of the atomic bomb. Hiroshima. This boom will affect the radius of about 50 km around the impact position.
For the location of the collision, some experts, such as David Rankin, an engineer Nasa's The Sky Sky Catalina survey project has sketched a risk corridor of the Viking. According to the current path of a planet, and if the probability of 2 percent becomes a reality, the asteroid will fall somewhere in a territory stretching from Northern America, crossing the Pacific Ocean, Arrive in South Asia, Arab Sea and Africa. Countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador will be at risk.
The threat is set by asteroids and comets capable of attacking the earth 11 -point Torino score: The higher the score, the greater the risk of moving space, the greater the impact on the Earth and cause a large amount of destruction. The asteroid of 2024 years is currently ranked at level 3, which means that it is large enough and will be over enough to be carefully monitored. However, most international agencies are confident that the level of risk will decrease over time to zero when the planet's orbit becomes more clear. Initially, the probability of impact was 1.2 percent. After that, it was adjusted to 2.3 percent, before the most recent assessment has reduced risk to 2 percent.
This is not the first time such a warning has been raised, nor is it for 2024 years, the most risky space has been monitored. Asteroids ApophisDiscovered in 2004, sometimes scores higher than 2024 years on both the Torino scale and the probability of collision. Immediately after it was discovered, it was awarded 2.7 % of the chance to fight the Earth. However, after a few months and with better observations, scientists have adjusted their calculations according to more actual values. Now, although it will overcome very close to the Earth by 2029, the chance of collision is zero.
To deal with 2024 years, the United Nations activated an emergency protocol to protect the planet. At the present time, with a planet located at the level 3 of the Torino scale, this is limited in continuous monitoring to understand the asteroid's movements.
Measures are also being developed to protect the Earth from asteroids with destruction potential. They include dynamic attacks, in which missiles are sent into space to collide with asteroids, to deviate them from a road to the Earth. NASA 2023 It has proven that such strikes can be given and they can move space objects, by checking this technique on a harmless asteroid called Dimorphos.
This story initially appeared on Wired in Spanish And was translated from Spanish.