Using data from observations of the James Webb Space Telescope, collected on the days February 18 and 26space agency experts rule out the possibility that asteroid 2024 YR4 will impact the Moon on December 22, 2032.
2024 YR4, which has been the subject of exhaustive monitoring by the American NASA and European ESA, caused concern last year due to the (small) probability that it would collide with the Earth, which was ruled out, and then with the Moon, which is now also ruled out.
«Asteroid 2024 YR4 will not impact the Moon in 2032!»the ESA writes in his X account.
In its latest communication, NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, located at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, refines the asteroid’s orbit. With the new data, 2024 YR4 is expected to pass by the lunar surface at a distance of 21,200 kilometers.
«This update reflects greater precision in our understanding of where the asteroid is expected to be in 2032, rather than a change in its orbital trajectory,» explains NASA on its planetary defense blog.
Astronomers have confirmed that it will not hit the Moon thanks to new observations made by the near-infrared camera (NIRCam) of the James Webb Space Telescope of NASA, ESA and the Canadian CSA.
Had a chance of crashing into the Moon
Previous analyses, conducted before incorporating these new observations, suggested that 2024 YR4 had a 4.3% chance of hitting the Moon on that date.
«The Moon is safe, 2024 YR4 does not represent any danger, but the work continues,» the ESA points out on its website, recalling that they continue to detect and track objects close to the Earth to ensure that, if a real danger arises, «it does not catch us off guard.»
2024 YR4 was discovered in late 2024 by the NASA-funded Asteroid Ground Impact Warning System station in Chile. For a brief period, it became the most dangerous asteroid discovered in the last 20 years.
At the beginning of 2025, the information available on the asteroid’s trajectory indicated that it had «a small but notable» probability of impacting Earth. Over time, and thanks to observations collected by observatories around the world, NASA concluded that the object did not pose a significant risk of impact to the planet in 2032 or during the next century.
It is common (NASA reminds) that initial observations and risk models are updated once additional observational data is collected and the models can be refined.
EFE Agency.
GML
