What asteroid heading towards Earth looks like as 'exact locations' of potential 2032 collision revealed

Here is what 2024 YR4, the asteroid which is currently dominating the news cycle, looks like.

The asteroid was initially spotted and reported at the tail end of last year, while most of us were busy knocking back the bubbly and enjoying our Christmas dinners, and is currently hurtling away from us and out into the cold depths of outer space.

But this isn't the last we've seen of YR4. Thanks to our Sun's gravitational pull, the asteroid will find itself on a potential collision path with our planet.

YR4 is believed to be no smaller than 40m but no bigger than 100m wide, about three times the size of the Chelyabinsk meteor, which landed in Russia back in 2013.

READ MORE

CHILLING SIMULATION SHOWS DAMAGE ASTEROID THAT COULD HIT EARTH IN SEVEN YEARS WOULD DO ON IMPACT

SPACE X NAMED IN 'CATASTROPHIC' WARNING THAT COULD TAKE OUT PLANES ON EARTH

Aside from a rough estimate of size, scientists don't know too much else about YR4. However, they've given their 'best guess' as to what the asteroid most likely looks like.

NASA has since released the visualisation via the 'Eyes on Asteroids' site to the public, revealing that YR4 probably looks very much like a grey space rock and not the 10 quintillion dollar asteroid which would make us all billionaires.

Take a look at it below:

Yay, big grey space rock (NASA/Eyes On)

Sky News likened the asteroid's size to that of an 'apartment block' and added that scientists currently predict that 22 December, 2032 would be the date of possible impact.

However, there's no need to panic just yet, as NASA has given the rock a 2.3 percent (or one in 43) chance of hitting Earth.

This means there's just shy of a 98 percent chance that everything is going to be just OK.

Scientists also have a rough prediction of the locations which YR4 could hit, should it strike our planet, with countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador landing in the potential impact zone.

Does NASA have a protocol should an asteroid pose a risk of hitting Earth?

Thankfully, yes. The scientists at NASA are acutely aware of the dangers of an asteroid striking the planet and have a protocol in place.

YR4 is circled in green (ATLAS)

"An asteroid impact is the only natural disaster that could be prevented," NASA asteroid expert Dr Kelly Fast explained.

"NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office supports projects to discover asteroids and to calculate their orbits far into the future."

The space agency previously experimented with what an asteroid interception mission would look like, by blowing up a space rock back in 2022.

Should all else fail, YR4 would likely collide with Earth at a speed of 17 kilometres per second (around 38,000 miles per hour), causing extensive 'local' damage to the region it hits but no That's some good news at least.