A NASA astronaut is warning the public that an asteroid that could hit Earth is ‘500 times more powerful than Hiroshima’.
Chris Hadfield is a former NASA astronaut who has now spoken out to warn people about a potential disaster.
In an interview with LBC, Hadfield shared details about the space rock that could collide with our planet.
In the clip, he said: “There’s so much stuff going on on Earth, orbiting the Earth and to the moon and beyond.
“Millions of things to talk about but one of the things we should talk about today, I think, is this asteroid.
“It was discovered on Christmas Day and it’s going to be back in 2028 just before Christmas and if it does smuck into the Earth it’s going to be in 2032 just before Christmas, so I;m calling it ‘the
Christmas asteroid’.”
The astronaut continued: “Most asteroids are discovered by amateurs, people with their own telescopes who just love looking into the darkness and trying to find a star that’s where the star shouldn’t be or one that’s moving against the starfield, but this one is very faint, it has never been seen before this Christmas.”
According to Hadfield, the asteroid is going to come ‘quite close to Earth’ in 2028, with a probability of ‘one in 45 chance’ of making impact.
The asteroid could hit Earth in 2032 (MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images)
There’s also a chance that the asteroid could collide with Earth in 2032 and, if it does, it’s expected to do some damage.
Hadfield has warned that the asteroid is ‘about 500 times more powerful than the biggest bomb we exploded during World War II’.
Officially named 2024 YR4, the asteroid has NASA working to determine the extent of the potential damage after they predicted it is the size of Big Ben.
Many people took to social media to share their own reactions to the news.
One user wrote: “As each day goes by, the more I feel the Don’t Look Up movie should be revered as a monument in a museum for how scarily accurate it is.”
Another said: “When they find out where on Earth this thing is going to strike, they can build a massive 200 metre tennis racket and whack it back into space.”
And a third person added: “Just to clarify, this particular asteroid is coming in with too much momentum to realistically intercept it with a probe. But we would have plenty of time to evacuate the affected area if need be.”
An asteroid could be headed for Earth and we might not be able to stop it.
Every now and then, we hear about some space rock that might hit Earth and cause chaos. But this time, things feel a little more serious.
According to reports, ‘2024 YR4’ is supposedly the size of the Statue of Liberty.
US space agency NASA estimated that there’s a 1 in 43 chance of the asteroid actually hitting Earth in 2032 – which isn’t a comforting number.
While it was initially spotted in December, scientist Dr. Robin George Andrews warned that even if we try to stop the space rock, we might accidentally make things way worse.
On X, he explained NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission which successfully knocked an asteroid off course with kinetic impact, i.e. slamming a spacecraft into it.
Science Photo Library – ANDRZEJ WOJCICKI / Getty
But just because it worked that one time, ‘it doesn’t mean we can use kinetic impactors like it to deflect any asteroid whenever we want’. Rapidly firing rockets at an asteroid could spell disaster for humanity.
“Nobody wants to accidentally ‘disrupt’ an asteroid, because those components can still head for Earth,” Andrews said. “As I often say, it’s like turning a cannonball into a shotgun spray.”
He added: “But we aren’t going to see it again until another Earth flyby in 2028. So much could go wrong if we try and hit it with something like DART.”
The scientist claimed that we would need several spacecrafts to hit the asteroid ‘perfectly’ without ‘catastrophically breaking it.’
He continued: “And with only a few years down the line, we could accidentally deflect it — but not enough to make it avoid the planet. Then, it still hits Earth, just somewhere else that wasn’t going to be hit.
“Maybe 2024 YR4’s odd will rise, and we will successfully deflect it in 2028 using a monster-sized spacecraft. Or maybe we’ll break an awkward taboo and instead opt to use a nuclear warhead to try to deflect it, which would provide a bigger punch to the asteroid than DART.”
MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Getty
Either way, we don’t have much time. And Andrews believes the best thing we can do is evacuate.
Meanwhile, NASA engineer David Rankin of NASA’s Catalina Sky Survey Project has mapped out a ‘risk corridor’ which gives us a rough idea of where the asteroid could come down.
The map predicts it to collide anywhere around northern South America, across the Pacific Ocean, southern Asia, the Arabian Sea, and Africa.
So the list of potential impact zones includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador.
And if it does hit us, scientists think it would explode in the atmosphere with a force equivalent to 8 million tons of TNT, affecting an area up to 50 kilometres wide.
Scientists have recently discovered an asteroid that is currently on a path towards Earth, and the 196-foot wide space rock could level an entire city if it happened to collide with our planet.
Discovered by NASA‘s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, 2024 YR4 is an otherwise innocuous asteroid that has gained significant interest due to it’s likely path towards Earth.
Unlike other asteroids that hold information that could help understand the origins of the universe or give everyone on the planet a lot of money, this particular chunk of space rock has become famous for all of the wrong reasons.
Travelling asteroids always pose the threat of impact if they are on a path towards Earth (Getty Stock)
Experts indicate that it has around a one-in-83 chance to hit Earth, as reported by Indy 100, and it’s current trajectory and speed have many predict that it’d reach our planet by around 2032 – less than a decade from now.
This is due to the fact that it’s around 27 million miles away right now, and while that might seem like something we don’t need to worry about in our lifetime, the speed of travelling asteroids makes the distance capable in a relatively short period of time.
On top of this, while 2024 YR4 is ‘only’ around 60 meters wide, the speed at which it would strike Earth makes it capable of wiping out an entire city, which would be incredibly devastating and an unprecedented disaster.
Thankfully NASA have issued a statement attempting to quell the fears of anyone foreseeing a doomsday situation on the horizon, advising that it’s not something that they’re particularly worried about.
As per LADBible, Paul Chodas, director at NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies has outlined: “We are not worried at all because of this 99 percent chance it will miss. But it deserves attention.”
This is certainly calming to hear, especially considering the fact that they’re still paying it close attention – although the close shave and persisting chance, even if it remains incredibly small, can still worry the anxious few.
While there is a 99% chance it’ll avoid Earth, 2024 YR4’s impact would be devastating (Getty Stock)
It has also been indicated that the ‘risk corridor’ of impact, otherwise known as the area that 2024 YR4 would likely hit, is around the area from South America to sub-Saharan Africa, across the Atlantic Ocean.
Catalina Sky Survey engineer David Rankin has outlined to Space the various different factors that are important to consider alongside the asteroid’s current orbit, as they play a vital factor in how it would potentially strike Earth.
“If [2024 YR4] is made of stony material, it could cause a significant air burst and fireball reaching the ground. If made of iron, it will punch right through the atmosphere with little trouble and make an impact crater.”
This could dramatically change the response needed to deal with the asteroid if it were to hit Earth, and it’s only something that we’ll know once it gets closer and thus easier to study.
NASA scientists have been able to determine the exact location – otherwise known as the ‘risk corridor’ – where impending asteroid 2024 YR4 is likely to strike Earth, and it could prove capable of wiping out entire cities.
Ever since it was discovered in December 2024, scientists have been fixated on the orbit of asteroid 2024 YR4, which is currently on a path towards Earth.
Initial projections estimated that it only had a 1% chance of colliding with our planet, but these odds have recently doubled to 2.3% with concerns continuing to grow throughout NASA.
Currently there’s not too much that we concretely know about 2024 YR4, as scientists still haven’t been able to accurately identify its size and velocity.
However, it is understood to be somewhere in between 40 and 90 meters wide, and is likely to reach Earth by 2032.
Part of the difficulty comes with the limited time that we have to study it, as there’s only a few months left before it disappears from view, resurfacing again in 2028.
2024 YR4’s chances of hitting Earth have recently doubled, and scientists are desperately trying to study the space rock (Getty Stock)
Thankfully NASA are now using the James Webb Space Telescope to get far greater readings of the asteroid, as its able to use MIRI instruments to analyze heat on its surface as opposed to relying on light reflected from the Sun.
What scientists have been able to more accurately predict right now is the areas that it’s likely to strike if it does happen to collide with Earth, which has been outlined as a ‘risk corridor’ by engineer David Rankin at NASA’s Catalina Sky Survey Project.
Rankin indicates that 2024 YR4 will likely strike anywhere between northern South America, across the Pacific Ocean, southern Asia, the Arabian Sea, and sub-Saharan Africa.
Countries that are particularly at risk include India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador, and it’s also predicted that the impact would be enough to wipe out an entire city with the power five hundred times that of an atomic bomb.
Something one famous physicist has proposed is to immediately start building preventative methods that negate the risk altogether, regardless of how small it is, as this is the Universe’s way of testing whether humanity can adequately prepare.
This will likely take the form of a Double Asteroid Redirection Test, otherwise known as DART, which NASA has deployed before, but one scientist has outlined why this might not be the best idea.
The first is that asteroids like Dimorphos, and smaller, tend to be rubble piles: not solid single rocks, but boulders weakly bound by their own gravity. Hitting them just right can produce that debris-like thrust effect, but if you hit them too hard, you’ll shatter them.
In a thread on X, Dr. Robin George Andrews explains: “Asteroids like Dimorphos [which was targeted by DART], and smaller, tend to be rubble piles: not solid single rocks, but boulders weakly bound by their own gravity. Hitting them just right can produce that debris-like thrust effect, but if you hit them too hard, you’ll shatter them.
“Nobody want’s to accidentally ‘disrupt’ an asteroid, because those components can still head for Earth. As I often say, it’s like turning a cannonball into a shotgun spray.”
This would have significant ramifications on the areas affected by a potential collision, as while there wouldn’t be a single impact as devastating, the ‘shotgun-like’ effect would wreak havoc on a much wider scale across out planet, so we have to be extremely careful.
Risk appears to be increasing when it comes to an asteroid that could crash into Earth, as it’s now understood that scientists at NASA now only have a few months to study it before it disappears out of sight.
This, combined with the chance of collision doubling, has began to worry many people, despite there still being a roughly 98% chance that 2024 YR4 soars safely past our planet as if nothing ever happened.
Discovered in December 2024, this particular asteroid is estimated to be on a course towards Earth, and is currently around 27 million miles away from Earth.
Scientists at NASA only have another couple of months to study 2024 YR4 before it disappears from view (Getty Stock)
At the moment, scientists indicate that the space rock is around 60 meters wide, and would be large enough to take out an entire city if it did happen to collide with our planet, so necessary preparations are already being considered.
One physicist has argued that this is a ‘test’ from the Universe to ensure that we’re adequately able to respond to world-changing events like this, indicating that defensive measures would be worthwhile to build even if 2024 YR4 flies right past us.
Scientists over at NASA will likely have to make their mind up quickly though, as they only have a few more months now to study the asteroid before it disappears, resurfacing again only in 2028 as per the Independent.
One of the most important reasons why these scientists need as much time as possible is to properly calculate a wide variety of factors. Understanding the asteroid’s trajectory, velocity, and size will help determine how likely it is to strike Earth and by what point, which will be vital in preparing for any potential impact.
Getting a look at the asteroid will help determine its size, velocity, trajectory, and material form (Getty Stock)
NASA’s James Webb Telescope is capable of looking at infrared light and heat that is emitted from 2024 YR4, allowing greater accuracy than light-based calculations would otherwise, as they very much depend on the reflective nature of the asteroid’s outer structure.
Furthermore, the material structure of the asteroid will also play a major part in its impact, as explained by Catalina Sky Survey engineer David Rankin in an interview with Space:
“If [2024 YR4] is made of stony material, it could cause a significant air burst and fireball reaching the ground. If made of iron, it will punch right through the atmosphere with little trouble and make an impact crater.”
This would dramatically affect how it strikes the point of impact, which is currently estimated to be somewhere between South America and sub-Saharan Africa.
