There's a 2.2% Chance This Asteroid Will Hit Earth in 2032—Its Impact Corridor Passes Through Heart of India

On 27 December 2024, the NASA-funded ‘Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System’ (ATLAS) telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, discovered an asteroid, designated 2024 YR4, brightening as it approached Earth.

This space rock, estimated to be between 40 and 90 meters wide – picture something slightly larger than a blue whale – serves as a stark reminder of the ever-present cosmic threats lurking in our solar system.

The asteroid was then receding from the earth and the calculations of the orbit had to be down with additional data obtained from observations before it disappeared from observational range.

As on 31 January, 2025, the asteroid was 48 million km away from Earth and moving further outwards. The asteroid will be available for observation and data collection till April 2025.

After this it will make its appearance only in 2028. That time, it will be moving towards our planet with a chance of impact in 2032.

It was the JPL’s Centre for Near Earth Objects Studies (CNEOS) which announced the probability of impact being more than 1 per cent. This was followed by the official announcement of International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), which stated the following:

Space agencies have assigned the value 3—from the famous Torino scale for potentially threatening near earth objects—to 2024 YR4.

History of asteroid impacts

The most famous, of course, is the asteroid (or comet) that struck the Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago, a cataclysm that extinguished the dinosaurs and paved the way for the rise of mammals.

While the chances of impact remain low, the possibility warrants vigilance and preparedness. India, along with the international community, must strengthen collaboration, research, and planetary defence strategies. Perhaps India can lead the African and Asian nations into an ESA-like Global South Space Agency.

Earth has weathered countless asteroid impacts, but humanity has also experienced its share of celestial scares.

The 1982 prediction of Comet Swift-Tuttle's potential collision, an event that could have dwarfed the dinosaur-killing impact, serves as a chilling example. While that particular threat did not materialise, it highlights the constant need for vigilance.

How cultures perceive threats of celestial annihilation

The fear of cosmic annihilation is deeply ingrained in human consciousness, reflected in popular culture through films like Deep Impact and Armageddon. These narratives however often depict a distinctly American perspective, echoing biblical themes of apocalypse and saving of the selected few.

However, the reality of a celestial impact transcends national boundaries, racial identities, religious beliefs and political ideologies. Of course there is also technologically hyper realistic literary presentation of the threat by the one and only Arthur C Clarke in his The Hammer of God (1993), even though the killer asteroid was named 'Kali' - a lingering Western prejudice in that great story teller.

A global threat requires a global response. Space agencies, regardless of their national affiliations, must collaborate seamlessly, sharing data and resources to protect all of humanity.

When premier space agencies belonging to specific countries discover such threats to our planetary habitation, they suddenly acquire a character transcending the barriers of nation-states and become the watchful eyes of all humanity.

From a Hindu perspective, such an event, when unforeseen could be seen as an adidaivika and adibhautika suffering. However, when the same hazard shifts from being a threat to being a challenge, then we can say that it has become adhyatmika problem.

Just as we have channelled our ingenuity into developing weapons of destruction, we can redirect that same creativity and technological prowess toward planetary defence.

By pooling our resources and knowledge, we can transform a potentially devastating cosmic event into a problem we can solve through human intellect and collaboration.

This is precisely what space agencies are already doing. The growing awareness of these threats necessitates an inclusive international network, with organizations like ISRO playing a vital role alongside NASA and ESA.

With 2024 YR4's potential impact zone crossing India, this international collaboration becomes not just desirable, but essential.

Update: As of 29 January, 2025, European Space Agency (ESA) estimated that the probability of the asteroid impacting the earth on 22 December 2032 was 1.2 per cent. But on as of 7 February, 2025, ESA revised and raised the probability to 2.2 per cent.