‘Don’t have time’…Dire warning on ‘city-killer’ asteroid hurtling towards Earth as expert casts doubt on deflecting rock

SCIENTISTS do not have much time to deflect an asteroid a size of a football pitch that is hurtling towards Earth, an expert has warned.

It comes as the odds of the Earth-threatening space rock colliding with our planet have shortened to a 1-in-43 chance.

The enormous rock dubbed 2024 YR4 is between 40 and 100 metres wide and would wipe out an entire city if it hits, scientists say.

The asteroid has been rated as the highest risk ever recorded by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Its path could cross over with Earth's orbit around Christmas time in 2032 - specifically 8.52am GMT on Wednesday, December 22 - ESA projections show.

With rising concerns about the chances of impact, researchers have suggested various deflection methods including solar lasers, nuclear bombs and kinetic impactors.

The latter is where scientists launch a spacecraft into an asteroid to knock it off its orbit.

This is the most likely option - but scientists may have already run out of time to use it against 2024YR4, science writer Dr Robin George Andrews claims.

He said on X: "I've often [been] told you need 10 years or more to build, plan and execute an asteroid deflection mission.

"Now let's look at 2024 YR4. We have less than eight years to potentially deal with it, if needed.

"I'm not saying a kinetic impactor mission, or missions, couldn't work.

"But we don't have much time, and we don't have enough info about this rapidly fading asteroid to properly inform our planetary defense decisions yet."

Even if we did have time, he noted that the kinetic impactor method may not work.

In fact, he warned that the technique used two years ago in Nasa's DART mission could be like "turning a cannonball into a shotgun spray," increasing the possible devastation on Earth.

The London-based scientist, who specialises in volcanology but writes generally on science, added: "I'm seeing a lot of people claim that, if it is going to impact Earth in 2032, we can use a DART-like spacecraft to ram it out of the way.

"Well, not necessarily. The DART mission was fab, but might not be able to stop 2024 YR4."

In 2022, Nasa's DART spacecraft was deliberately driven into the side of Dimorphos - a small asteroid "moonlet".

The mission was mainly to test Nasa's planet defence systems, and was deemed a big success.

Dr Andrews said: "As DART smashed into the asteroid, lots of debris flew back off the asteroid, acting like a rocket jet and giving it more of a push."

But he warned that it does not prove the method can be used for all kinds of asteroid deflection.

He said: "Asteroids like Dimorphos, and smaller, tend to be rubble piles: not solid single rocks, but boulders weakly bound by their own gravity.

"Hitting them just right can produce that debris-like thrust effect, but if you hit them too hard, you'll shatter them.

"Nobody wants to accidentally 'disrupt' an asteroid, because those components can still head for Earth... it's like turning a cannonball into a shotgun spray."

While 2024YR4 is smaller than Dimorphos, it will not pass Earth again until 2028, giving scientists less than four years to decide how and when to take action.

"So much could go wrong if we try and hit it with something like DART," Dr Andrews warned.

If the asteroid comes back around and is larger than scientists originally thought, one spacecraft may not be enough to deflect it far enough to avoid hitting Earth.

GOING NUCLEAR

While it could be deflected with a "monster-sized spacecraft", Dr Andrews appeared to urge researchers not to write off the suggestion of detonating a nuclear bomb near or in the asteroid.

He suggested that scientists may "break an awkward taboo" of using a nuclear weapon against 2024YR4 "which would provide a bigger punch than DART".

The European Union-funded NEO Shield consortium said last week that the use of a nuclear bomb would be a last resort.

While the idea of sending a nuclear weapon into space to stop a potentially deadly asteroid sounds like fiction thanks to movies like Armageddon, it is one of the options available to scientists.

A carefully executed explosion close to the surface of the asteroid could be carried out in the hope that the rock shatters into smaller fragments that would burn up in the atmosphere.

However, larger chunks could still be big enough to survive the atmosphere and rain down on a larger area of Earth.

Another nuclear option would be to detonate the nuclear weapon further away from the asteroid with the idea that the explosion would damage the surface of the rock and knock it off course.

If carried out correctly, there would be minimal damage to the asteroid, and therefore no risk of chunks of space rock falling to Earth.

But detonating a nuclear weapon in space is not only tricky and risky but also strictly against UN treaties.