(Photo by Handout / NASA/Magdalena Ridge 2.4m telescope/New Mexico Institute of Technology/Ryan / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / NASA/Magdalena Ridge 2.4m telescope/New Mexico Institute of Technology/Ryan" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS (Photo by HANDOUT/NASA/Magdalena Ridge 2.4m telescope/New Mexico Institute of Technology/Ryan/AFP via Getty Images)] With the ‘time-critical meteor hurtling towards our atmosphere at an alarming rate, the space agency has enlisted the help of the James Webb Space Telescope to study YR4 and gauge how much damage it would cause if it did strike our planet, the European Space Agency reports.
NASA makes emergency decision over ‘city-killer’ asteroid heading for Earth NASA is making emergency preparations to deal with a ‘city-killing’ asteroid after the odds of it smashing into Earth continue to rise.
To overcome this, astronomers are preparing to use the James Webb Telescope – the largest and most powerful telescope ever made, which was launched into space in 2021 and currently resides 1 million miles (1.5 million km) away from Earth.
Even at its current estimated size, experts predict that YR4 could explode with an energy of 15 megatons of TNT, were it to hit Earth, producing an explosion 100 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.
‘It is very important that we improve our size estimate for 2024 YR4: the hazard represented by a 40 m asteroid is very different from that of a 90 m asteroid,” ESA added.’.
