Astronomers Propose Blowing Up a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid
Key Facts and Summary The Asteroid 2024 YR4: From Earth Hazard to Lunar Threat 2024 YR4 is a recently discovered asteroid that has drawn intense attention from astronomers and space agencies. Detected on 27 December 2024 by the ATLAS survey telescope in Chile, it initially appeared on a worrisome trajectory esa.int. In early 2025, automated orbit calculations raised the alarm that this ~60-meter “city-killer” asteroid had a roughly 3% chance of impacting Earth on December 22, 2032 esa.int universetoday.com. A few percent might sound small, but by asteroid risk standards it’s huge – for context, NASA’s risk list almost never