Image by Zelch Csaba via Pexels
New observations by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have eliminated the last remaining impact threat posed by asteroid 2024 YR4, ruling out the possibility that the near-Earth object could strike the Moon in December 2032.
NASA said observations collected by Webb on February 18 and 26, 2026, enabled scientists to refine the asteroid's orbit enough to "rule out a chance of lunar impact on Dec. 22, 2032." Instead, asteroid 2024 YR4 is now expected to pass the Moon at a distance of about 13,200 miles (21,200 km). The agency stressed that the update "reflects improved precision in our understanding of where the asteroid is expected to be in 2032 rather than a shift in its orbital path."
The announcement closes a remarkable chapter in planetary defence that began in late 2024, when the approximately 60-metre-wide asteroid briefly became the most closely watched near-Earth object in the world.
Discovered on December 27, 2024, by the ATLAS telescope in Chile, 2024 YR4 initially appeared to have a small chance of colliding with Earth on December 22, 2032. As astronomers gathered more observations, the impact probability briefly climbed to around 3%—the highest ever recorded for an asteroid of its size—before steadily falling as its orbit became better understood.
