Look at it this way — there's almost a 99 per cent chance an asteroid up to the size of a football field won't hit the Earth in eight years. Still, there's up to a two per cent chance it will, according to NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

YR is considered to be larger than the Chelyabinsk asteroid that struck Russia in 2013. Its shock wave was strong enough to injure 1,500 people.

On December 22, 2032, asteroid 2024 YR4 could pass by safely, coming no closer to us than 1.7 million kilometres, or over 4 times the distance to the Moon. On the other hand, there is a small, but non-zero chance that it could strike the planet instead!