Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson warns about ‘mansion-sized asteroid’ that could hit Earth in 2032
Renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson warned that a gargantuan asteroid with enough power to level entire cities is on track to hit Earth in 2032.
Asteroid 2024 YR4, which was first identified as a threat at the end of last year, is currently estimated to be 130 to 300 feet wide. It has a 2.3% chance of smacking Earth when it approaches on Dec. 22, 2032, according to NASA — nearly two times higher odds than when it first cropped up on the space agency’s radar.
As the asteroid’s chances of hitting Earth climbed, Tyson took to X on Friday to advise against defunding science programs that could be vital to protect against the potentially catastrophic space rock.
“At the moment, mansion-sized Asteroid 2024-YR4 has a one-in-fifty chance of hitting Earth in the next eight years. Now might be a bad time to reduce spending on Science. Just sayin,” Tyson wrote.
If space rock were to hit Earth, the rippling blast would be almost equal to detonating 7.7 megatons of TNT, according to experts. It would also be about 500 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
While the odds of contact are still low, the asteroid presents a slim chance of what could be a mass casualty disaster. Astronomers are keeping a close eye on it in case it becomes a legitimately serious threat, so they can plan a defense mission accordingly.
This type of planning and programming requires funds that currently hang precariously in the balance.
The National Science Foundation, an independent government agency and the largest funder of scientific research in the nation, froze its approval process for grants and new spending following an executive order from President Trump that placed a pause on all federal grants.
While the executive order has since been paused by a federal judge, the NSF has yet to resume its funding. It had also been informed in early February that it should prepare to lose half its staff and two-thirds of its funding.
Many scientists have expressed concern about what cuts and layoffs could come next, and what it could mean for the state of science in the United States.
The asteroid was able to be recorded in the first place because of a NASA-funded project. The giant space rock is still approximately 8 years away — or approximately 27 million miles.
It sits near the top of NASA’s automated Sentry risk list that ranks known Near Earth Objects based on their likelihood to hit Earth.
‘We think — because of the way it reflects light — that it’s probably a stony asteroid, a bunch of bits of other things that have slowly coalesced together,’ former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield said during an appearance on the British radio station LBC News this week.
Because of this, Hadfield surmised that the asteroid would likely hit Earth in fragments rather than one big piece — meaning multiple places could be hit.
Each fragment depending on its size could cause devastating shockwaves to decimate entire cities, experts said — which is why 2024 YR4 has been designated a “city-killer.”
There is a possibility that the asteroid could explode in mid-air similar to the Tunguska asteroid in 1908, which still caused the largest impact event in Earth’s history.
The force of the Tunguska blast, despite exploding in the air, was equivalent to detonating 50 million tons of TNT — which hardly holds a candle to 2024 YR4’s projected 7.7 megatons.
Thankfully, NASA has a developmental asteroid repellant of its own called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test.
In September 2022, the space agency used a spacecraft to alter an asteroid’s orbit by letting it collide with the space rock. It was the first test of the kinetic impactor technique, which could be used to force asteroids on a different path in the future.
“If you [hit] it early enough, then a tiny angular change will cause it to miss the Earth. At least we know that we’re capable of saving the Earth,” Hadfield said.
