The release of energy from the disintegration of the 90-meter asteroid 2024 YR4 in the atmosphere can reach 8 megatons in TNT equivalent. This is comparable to the power of the explosion of 20 Chelyabinsk meteorites. Astronomer Leonid Elenin, a research fellow at the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, reported this to TASS.
“If the asteroid collides with the Earth in 2032, as some calculations show, this event will become a “regional catastrophe,” ”the scientist added.
The probability of a collision of the asteroid 2024 YR4 with the Earth has increased to 3.1 percent, but it is impossible to calculate the risk to humanity accurately. The asteroid can still change its trajectory several times and acquire specific properties.
