Asteroid 2024 YR4 won't smack Moon in 2032, boffins confirm
Scientists have ruled out the possibility that the near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4 might hit the Moon on December 22, 2032.
Previous analyses had given the event a 4.3 percent chance, but refinements to measurements of its orbit by the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre and NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies have reduced the probability to 0.0 percent. Instead, the asteroid will pass the lunar surface at approximately 13,200 miles (21,200 km).
A year ago, boffins estimated the asteroid had a 1-in-100 chance of hitting the Earth. The figure was revised up and down before scientists eventually declared Earth safe from this particular object. Even though asteroid 2024 YR4 was not going to come close to Earth, there remained a distinct possibility it might impact the Moon.
The asteroid has not been observable from Earth or most space-based observatories since last (Northern Hemisphere) spring, but it did not escape the beady gaze of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which collected observations on February 18 and 26. Using the new data, scientists were able to refine the orbit of 2024 YR4 further and calculated it won't create a new crater on the Moon in 2032.
The observations by the JWST were among the faintest ever of an asteroid, according to NASA. It was assumed that no further observations were possible until 2028, but the European Space Agency said "an international team of astronomers identified two narrow opportunities in February 2026 in which they believed that Webb may be able to detect the faint speck against a sparse backdrop of stars whose positions are very well known thanks to the work of ESA's Gaia mission."
JWST is designed to study galaxies and other cosmic structures billions of light-years away, and its field of view is very small, so using it this way is quite the feat.
Although 2024 YR4 poses no danger, ESA added: "The Planetary Defence team in ESA's Space Safety Programme continues to detect and track near-Earth objects to ensure that if a genuine danger ever emerges, we will not be caught unaware." ®
