Asteroid 2024 YR4 is being monitored by NASA

NASA has issued a major update on whether a ‘city killer’ asteroid will hit Earth.

Asteroid 2024 YR4 was estimated to have a one in 32 (3.1 per cent) chance of hitting Earth on December 22, 2032 – the highest probability recorded in more than two decades.

It led a team of UN-backed experts to start drawing up contingency plans over the asteroid.

The odds have now changed after scientists analysed the rock.

NASA estimates that it now has a 0.0017 per cent chance chance of hitting Earth in December 2032.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has a similar risk assessment of 0.002 per cent.

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According to NASA, it means the possibility of impact with Earth is one in 59,000 – with a 99.9983 per cent chance the asteroid will safely pass by Earth without causing any damage, Mirror reports.

NASA said: “When first discovered, asteroid 2024 YR4 had a very small, but notable chance of impacting our planet in 2032.

“As observations of the asteroid continued to be submitted to the Minor Planet Center, experts at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL’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 latest observations have further reduced the uncertainty of its future trajectory, and the range of possible locations the asteroid could be on Dec. 22, 2032, has moved farther away from the Earth.”

NASA said there is still a very small chance – 1.7 per cent – that the asteroid will impact the moon on that day.

It said it will continue to observe asteroid 2024 YR4.

NASA added: “While this asteroid no longer poses a significant impact hazard to Earth, 2024 YR4 provided an invaluable opportunity for experts at NASA and its partner institutions to test planetary defence science and notification processes.”

Asteroid 2024 YR4 was detected by telescopes on December 27 last year and is estimated to be 40m to 90m wide.

It is similar to a large building and could cause local devastation if it collided with Earth.

Astronomer Richard Binzel, the inventor of the Torino Scale – a method for categorising the impact hazard associated with near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as asteroids and comets – said: “I’m pleasantly surprised that we could reduce the probability numbers so quickly.

“It would not have done anyone any good to have this probability hang around for a long time because it was going to go to zero.

“The reason I say it was going to go to zero is at the end of the day, the probability is either zero and it misses you, or it’s one and it hits you.

“Any number in between is just the space of your uncertainty. We didn’t want us to have to sit in that time and space of uncertainty for months and months.”