MOSI monitoring asteroid that had record chance of colliding with Earth

Astronomers raise alert of asteroid hitting earth

FOX 13's Evan Axelbank reports that an asteroid that could be on a collision course with Earth was given a 3% chance of hitting Earth in 2032 on Wednesday before astronomers lowered the percentage of an asteroid colliding with Earth to 1.5% on Wednesday evening.

TAMPA, Fla. - Astronomers briefly raised the alert level for an asteroid that could be on a collision course with Earth. They gave it a 3% chance of hitting Earth in 2032, which is the highest percentage ever given for a near-Earth asteroid, but it has since been lowered to 1.5% probability.

Local perspective:

Astronomers in the Tampa Bay area and beyond are keeping an eye on the asteroid, which has the chance of making a direct impact on December 22, 2032. It's called "YR4," and it's zipping through space at 38,000 MPH.

"There's no chance of you spotting that asteroid with binoculars," said Jose Cotayo of MOSI. "You need, right now, at least a 2M telescope to even catch a faint glimpse of it."

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It's 30 million miles away and counting. Astronomers at Tampa's MOSI pointed out that its orbit around the sun will eventually swing it back towards Earth. A simulation showed it could hit Bogota, Lagos, Mumbai or the ocean.

"There's still a lot more that we need to learn before we can say, ‘hey, if you live along this line, be careful,’" said Cotayo.

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The optimist would say the football-sized rock has a 98.5% chance of missing Earth. Dr. Marcia Rieke, who helps operate the Webb Telescope, said that she expects that in the coming months, they'll see if they can get good pictures of it in hopes of determining how severe an impact would be.

It's unlikely to end us all, but it could be similar to a nuclear bomb.

"I don't think we need to take out asteroid collision insurance," said Rieke. "But, we do want to be sure that the people that do that kind of research and keep a close eye on such things are doing it."

The saving grace, Rieke said, could be crashing a rocket into it, the way NASA did to a similar asteroid in 2022. The deflection could be enough to make the space rock buzz off, and, thankfully, there's still plenty of time to launch a mission like that, if need be.

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MOSI already has one meteorite in its collection, and it would rather not need to collect anymore.

"We now live in a time where we are able to make observations, with a lot of accuracy and also with ample time," said Cotayo. "There's definitely time to come up with a plan of attack."

The Source: The information in this story was gathered through previous reports on the asteroid and through interviews with MOSI's Jose Cotayo and Dr. Marcia Rieke, who helps operate the Webb Telescope.

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