2032 Asteroid Has Better Chance of Hitting Washington State

2032 Asteroid Has Better Chance of Hitting Washington State

A newly discovered asteroid has a better-than-average chance of striking Washington State in 2032.

Newly Discovered Asteroid 2024 YR4: Potential Impact To WA State in 2032

If you've seen the movie Armageddon, it is possible that an asteroid can hit the planet and cause massive destruction.

Most asteroids are deflected by Jupiter but according to Google, there are close to 3000 interstellar asteroids that could cause potential harm to the place we call home.

Get our free mobile app

According to starwalk.space.com, there is a new asteroid that Washingtonians should know about:

Asteroid 2024 YR4 was discovered by the ATLAS telescope on December 27, 2024. At approximately 44-100 meters in diameter, it is comparable in size to a high building (15-30 stories). The asteroid completes an orbit around the Sun roughly every 4 years. Shortly after its discovery, astronomers realized that it had already passed close to Earth on December 25, 2024, at a distance of 830,000 kilometers

Assessing the Risk to Washington State

There are six potential Crashdown locations for Asteroid 2024 YR4 and the West Coast is one of the possible sites.

Most asteroids have a 0 to 1 % chance of hitting Earth but Asteroid 2024 YR4 chances have been upgraded to 2.2% on a potential Earth crash.

We've got a 1 in 44 percent chance that Asteroid 2024 YR4 will hit which makes it one of those suspects that NASA is keeping a close eye on.

The good news is that 2032 is the projected year that Asteroid 2024 YR4 is set to hit and we've got time to prevent it thanks to NASA's efforts.

The next question is, who's ready to go to space and knock that asteroid out of here?