A NASA astronaut is warning the public that an asteroid that could hit Earth is ‘500 times more powerful than Hiroshima’.
Chris Hadfield is a former NASA astronaut who has now spoken out to warn people about a potential disaster.
In an interview with LBC, Hadfield shared details about the space rock that could collide with our planet.
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In the clip, he said: “There’s so much stuff going on on Earth, orbiting the Earth and to the moon and beyond.
“Millions of things to talk about but one of the things we should talk about today, I think, is this asteroid.
“It was discovered on Christmas Day and it’s going to be back in 2028 just before Christmas and if it does smuck into the Earth it’s going to be in 2032 just before Christmas, so I'm calling it ‘the Christmas asteroid’.”
The astronaut continued: “Most asteroids are discovered by amateurs, people with their own telescopes who just love looking into the darkness and trying to find a star that’s where the star shouldn’t be or one that’s moving against the starfield, but this one is very faint, it has never been seen before this Christmas.”
According to Hadfield, the asteroid is going to come ‘quite close to Earth’ in 2028, with a probability of ‘one in 45 chance’ of making impact.
There’s also a chance that the asteroid could collide with Earth in 2032 and, if it does, it’s expected to do some damage.
Hadfield has warned that the asteroid is ‘about 500 times more powerful than the biggest bomb we exploded during World War II’.
Officially named 2024 YR4, the asteroid has NASA working to determine the extent of the potential damage after they predicted it is the size of Big Ben.
Many people took to social media to share their own reactions to the news.
One user wrote: “As each day goes by, the more I feel the Don’t Look Up movie should be revered as a monument in a museum for how scarily accurate it is.”
Another said: “When they find out where on Earth this thing is going to strike, they can build a massive 200 metre tennis racket and whack it back into space.”
And a third person added: “Just to clarify, this particular asteroid is coming in with too much momentum to realistically intercept it with a probe. But we would have plenty of time to evacuate the affected area if need be.”