An asteroid capable of wiping out an entire city could strike Earth in eight years’ time – as experts give the precise day it may hit.

The 2024 YR4 asteroid could collide with Earth in 2032 just days before Christmas, and if so, would be able to flatten a mid-sized city should it hit an urbanised area. While the huge rock carries relatively slim odds of crashing into us, experts at NASA are taking the possible threat seriously.

The asteroid currently passes by every four years and most recently passed in December 2024. However, while the next due flyby in 2028 leaves enough room to pass Earth with no contact, 2032’s looks far more critical with a 3% chance of impact.

YR4 will pass Earth on December 22 of that year, somewhere around the middle of the day in Universal Time. Experts say the rock will then pass through a part of Earth’s orbit, meaning there is a possibility of it colliding with Earth’s path.

According to the scientists, there will be a 20-minute window in that time in which our planet will either be in or out of the asteroid’s path. The asteroid was under daily monitoring, but is now being checked with much larger telescopes so that astronomers can measure its path around the sun with more precision.

From April onwards, YR4 will be so far from Earth in its orbit that the James Webb Telescope will be used to monitor it. By later in the year, astronomers will be able to determine better whether it is likely to hit Earth in its 2032 fly-by. “Only a few asteroids have been studied like this,” Bryce Bolin, a NASA astronomer involved in the photo-op, told Space.com of the capturing the space rock.

The last time an asteroid came close enough to Earth with more than a 1% chance of impact was in 2004, when the Apophis asteroid flew by. Refined observations however have calculated this huge lump of rock won’t pose another risk to us for at least a century.

Asteroids last crashed into Earth in 1908 when a 2,000km squared patch of forest in Siberia was wiped out in a big explosion consistent with an impact. However, scientists believe this was more likely to have come from a pile of several pieces of rock rather than one large one. Due to the time and location, it’s unknown whether anyone was killed, but a similar sized impact in an urban area would be catastrophic for human life.

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