Overview

• NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies has cut the asteroid’s Earth impact probability to 0.001 percent following refined orbital calculations.
• Current NASA and ESA analyses assign a 4.3 percent chance that 2024 YR4 will strike the Moon on December 22, 2032.
• James Webb Space Telescope infrared measurements this spring determined the asteroid is a solid, 60 ± 7 m silicate body spinning every 19.46 minutes.
• Impact simulations predict a 6.5 megaton energy release would carve a roughly 1 km lunar crater and hurl up to 10 million kg of debris toward Earth, risking dense meteoroid showers and satellite damage.
• Building on 2022’s DART deflection test, ESA’s upcoming Hera mission and global tracking of some 38,500 near-Earth asteroids underscore advancing planetary defense efforts.