NASA Has Some Good News About The Asteroid That Could Hit Earth [View all]

21 February 2025
By AFP

The chance that an asteroid capable of wiping out a city will hit Earth in eight years has been cut in half to around 1.5 percent, according to new calculations from NASA.

The drop in odds had been widely anticipated by the global astronomical community, which now broadly expects the probability the asteroid will hit Earth on December 22, 2032 to fall down to zero.

For more than 24 hours, the asteroid did have the highest probability of hitting Earth – 3.1 percent – of such a big space rock in modern forecasting.

Updated calculations posted by NASA late Wednesday said the odds of a direct hit had fallen to 1.5 percent.

The European Space Agency's separate calculations plunged to 1.38 percent.

Richard Moissl, head of the ESA's planetary defence office, told AFP this had been expected as the "uncertainty region" where the asteroid could strike starts to "slip off" Earth.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-has-some-good-news-about-the-asteroid-that-could-hit-earth