You may hear about a large asteroid headed toward Earth. Don’t panic.

Just after Christmas Day, astronomers spotted something zipping away from Earth: a rock somewhere between 130 feet and 330 feet long that they named 2024 YR4. Over the next few weeks, they simulated its possible future orbits. They now say, based on the most up-to-date information, that there is a 1.3 percent chance that this asteroid will strike somewhere on Earth on Dec. 22, 2032.

Should this keep you up at night?

“No, absolutely not,” said David Rankin, a comet and asteroid spotter at the University of Arizona.

The object’s current odds of striking Earth may sound scary — and it’s fair to say that an asteroid in this size range has the potential to cause harm. Should it strike a city, the damage would not cause anything close to a mass extinction, but the damage to the city itself would be catastrophic.

But a 1.3 percent chance of a hit is also a 98.7 percent chance of a miss. “It’s not a number you want to ignore, but it’s not a number you need to lose sleep over,” Mr. Rankin said.

And the odds may diminish over time, as astronomers gather new data about the object.

For now, experts say, calm is warranted. The asteroid has been spotted several years ahead of its close shave with Earth — and that’s a good thing.

“The international systems we’re putting in place to find, track and characterize — and, if it comes to it, mitigate the impacts of — hazardous asteroids and comets are working as intended,” said Andy Rivkin, an astronomer and planetary defense researcher at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.

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