New update on chance of 'city killer' asteroid hitting Earth in 2032

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Panic averted: the 'city killer' asteroid at risk of hitting Earth like a hand grenade is now highly unlikely to cause a collision.

This asteroid has a 0.0027% chance of hitting Earth, meaning the odds of this happening are 1 in 37,000.

This is a decrease from around 1 in 32, which has raised concerns over how to launch a planetary defence mission.

in a high-risk and untried operation.

The asteroid had been assigned the highest threat level ever recorded, a 3 on the Torino scale.

But after taking a closer look, NASA found that we don't have to be too concerned (it's still a long shot, though – you're still a lot less likely to win the lottery).

This is what we had hoped for, and it's not out of the ordinary for an asteroid to look like it's a potential strike at first, before the likelihood is narrowed down.

NASA said the latest observations indicate 'there's no substantial likelihood of this asteroid posing a threat to our planet for the next hundred years'.

They said there's still a small chance of it hitting the Moon on December 22, 2032, however, which was estimated at 1.7% yesterday.

If you're getting the impression that there are more scary stories about asteroids around, it's not that any more are headed our way, but we're just getting better at spotting them.

Before, we might not have known we were in trouble till a rock actually hit us, which wasn't exactly ideal.

As we get more skilled at spotting them, we'll be aware of them much sooner. If one does appear to be heading in our direction, we'll have a better opportunity to steer it off course or, at the very least, to get out of its path.

If the 2024-YR4 asteroid had made a direct hit, the UK would still have been outside the predicted danger zone, as per the International Asteroid Warning Network's (IAWN) forecast.

The corridor extends across the eastern Pacific Ocean, northern parts of South America, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Arabian Sea, and South Asia, the IAWN stated.

Up to 50 kilometres from the impact site.

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The rock was like a 'bullet zeroing in on Earth from deep space', travelling at around 17 kilometres per second, he said while chatting with LBC.

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