From City-Killer To Dud, How This Asteroid Stoked Panic, Put NASA Under Spotlight

An asteroid that was massive at anything between 130 to 300 feet and was dubbed as a city-killer has suddenly turned out to be a dud. Expected to crash onto Earth on Dec. 22, 2025, this asteroid stoked panic even as astronomers rushed to check out its true trajectory. This is the Asteroid 2024 YR4.

As the first data had filtered in, the chances of the asteroid striking Earth were huge. Astronomers had then predicted the risk was at around 3.1%. However, subsequent studies toned it down to 1.5% and then 0.28%. And now, it has been whittled down even further, indicating its fall from being an object of huge concern for humanity to virtually being a non-entity.

According to the latest calculations there is a near-zero chance of the asteroid actually hitting Earth. Check this out: according to the latest NASA numbers, the asteroid is expected to miss Earth and the probability is 99.9983% or, to put it differently the risk of it crashing into our planet have plummeted to just is just 0.0017 per cent.

While you may rejoice at the fact that the asteroid will miss Earth in all probability, but these changes also mean that its chances of hitting the moon have increased substantially. Now, there is a 1.7 per cent probability that the asteroid will hit the moon.

In its statement NASA said, "As observations of the asteroid continued to be submitted to the Minor Planet Center, experts at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies were able to calculate more precise models of the asteroid's trajectory and now have found there is no significant potential for this asteroid to impact our planet for the next century."

The reason why asteroids strike fear in the astronomer community is their potential for destruction and their sudden appearance, which means not much can be done to avoid it.