Overview
- Updated calculations show 2024 YR4 will pass about 13,200 miles (21,200 km) from the Moon on December 22, 2032, eliminating a lunar impact.
- Webb’s NIRCam spotted the asteroid on February 18 and 26, 2026, using background stars precisely mapped by ESA’s Gaia to achieve the needed accuracy.
- NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies reports no significant risk to Earth on that date or through the next century.
- The observations, led by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, rank among the faintest ever of an asteroid and sharply narrowed orbital uncertainty.
- The roughly 60-meter object was discovered by the ATLAS survey in late 2024; initial solutions briefly suggested up to 3.1% Earth and 4.3% lunar impact probabilities before improved data removed those risks.