Asteroid 2024 JR4, If you measure about 40 to 100 meters wide, it will pass very close to the earth in December 2032 – and it can even hit the planet. Due to the size, speed and the possibility of making it impact, the internet has given it the nickname of “The City Destroyer”.

Important space agencies, such as the European Space Agency, estimate that there is about 2 percent chance that 2024 YR4 will hit the Earth, although this risk figure will be updated as scientists learn more about the asteroid’s path. Although it is much more likely that the asteroid will miss the earth, areas that can be influenced by a collision have already been identified.

The destructive potential of 2024 JR4 depends on the composition, speed and mass. Since the asteroid is still very far, these properties can only be estimated, and the effects of a strike are therefore also somewhat inaccurate predictions at this stage. Currently, astronomers believe that 2024 YR4 creates an aviation or in the air blast that is equivalent to nearly 8 million tonnes of TNT, or 500 times the power of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This explosion will affect approximately a 50 kilometer radius around the impact place.

For the location of the collision, some experts, such as David Rankin, have sketched an engineer at the Nasa’s Catalina Sky Survey project, a ‘risk -grate’. According to the current path of the asteroid, and if the 2 percent likelihood becomes reality, the asteroid must fall somewhere in a group of territory ranging from North South America, across the Pacific, to South Asia, the Arabic Sea and Africa. Countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador would run the risk.

The threat posed by asteroids and comets that could possibly stop the earth is measured on the 11-point Torino scale: the higher the score, the greater the risk of a travel space object affecting the earth and large amounts of destruction will cause. The 2024 -JR4 -asteroid is current at level 3, which means it is large enough and will pass close enough to be carefully monitored. However, most international agencies are confident that the risk level will fall to zero over time as the asteroid’s track becomes clearer. Initially, the likelihood of impact was 1.2 percent. It was then adjusted to 2.3 percent before the most recent assessment reduced the risk to 2 percent.

This is not the first time such a warning has been raised, and 2024 years are also not the risky space object to be monitored. The asteroid Apophis, discovered in 2004, sometimes achieved higher than 2024 JR4 on the Torino scale and the clash of collisions. Shortly after it was discovered, it was given a 2.7 percent chance to hit the earth. However, after a few months and with better observations, scientists adapted their calculations to more realistic values. Although it will pass very close to the earth in 2029, the chances of collision are zero.

In response at 2024 JR4, the UN activated an emergency protocol for the protection of the planet. Since the asteroid is provisionally on level 3 of the Torino scale, it is limited to continuous monitoring to understand the asteroid’s movements.

Measures are also being developed to protect the earth with a destructive potential from asteroids. This includes kinetic strikes, where rockets are sent into space to clash with asteroids, to bend it off a collision path with the earth. NASA’s dart mission of 2023 has proven that such strikes can be launched and that they can move space objects by testing this technique on a harmless asteroid called Dimorphos.

This story originally appears on Wired and español and was translated from Spanish.