China builds ‘planetary defence’ team as concerns grow over 2024 YR4 asteroid

China has started assembling a planetary defence team to counter the threat of near-Earth asteroids following the discovery of a large asteroid that could strike our planet in seven years.

On Friday, the European Space Agency (ESA) updated their probability of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth in 2032 to 2.2 per cent, putting it at the top of the agency’s risk list.

The asteroid, estimated to be 40 to 90 metres (130 to 300 feet) wide, was discovered by the University of Hawaii’s Institute of Astronomy in late December. The discovery activated global asteroid response mechanisms after its odds of an impact with Earth surpassed an international monitoring threshold.

Weeks after the asteroid’s discovery, a special projects centre at China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence posted a recruitment notice listing three available roles for a “planetary defence post”.

The centre, which is responsible for aerospace engineering research and implementation and Earth observation, is recruiting graduates to study asteroid monitoring and create early warning methods, according to the notice posted last month on the WeChat account of the journal China Space Science and Technology.

There are various methods that could be used to try to stop an asteroid from hitting Earth. In the world’s first successful planetary defence test in 2022, US space agency Nasa altered an asteroid’s trajectory by colliding with it.