As of February 2025[update], it is the second largest object known to have a better than 1/1000 chance (0.1%) of impacting Earth behind 2024 YR4 and has the fifth highest cumulative Palermo scale rating at −2.77.

[2] Because of its very Earth-like orbit and because it would have been near the Earth in 1971 (coinciding with the Apollo program), there was speculation that 2000 SG344 might not be an asteroid but a man-made object such as an S-IVB booster stage from a Saturn V rocket which would make it about 15 meters in diameter and much less massive.

Until December 2004, it was considered to have the highest (though still very low) likelihood of any near-Earth object to impact Earth in the next 100 years.

Assuming the object is a rocky asteroid and that it reaches Earth's surface without exploding in the atmosphere, the impact energy released would be an estimated 1.0 megatons of TNT, comparable to the Tunguska and Chelyabinsk events, which could create an impact crater approximately 100 feet (30 m) wide.

In 2008, NASA considered this asteroid as a possible target for a crewed mission (Artemis 2) using the Orion spacecraft, prior to a projected 2030 push to Mars.