Will a major meteor strike hit Earth before 2030?

Why we chose it

This one exists because the 2024 YR4 asteroid saga made space-rock panic bankable — shortly after its December 2024 discovery, scientists reported it could hit Earth, with odds peaking at 3.1% that February before observations precluded a collision, then the drama shifted to a possible moon strike until NASA used Webb data from February to rule out any 2032 lunar impact. Structural punchline: YR4's date was December 2032 — it could never have resolved this before-2030 market anyway.

The real story is the fine print. "Yes" requires a meteor releasing 10 kilotons of TNT or greater hitting Earth before January 1, 2030 — and that's routine cosmic weather, not Armageddon. About a dozen fireballs since 1988 exceed 10 kt, roughly one every three years, and most detonate over ocean: a 2018 Bering Sea blast ten times Hiroshima went largely unnoticed. So 53% on a hundred and twenty grand of volume is defensible base-rate math on a thin book — the public reading "major" as movie-sized is the mispricing. The bit writes itself — "the apocalypse market that's actually about splashes nobody hears.