James Webb Telescope updates odds that 'city killer' asteroid 2024 YR4 will hit the moon
Live Science • • general
Key Points:
- New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have ruled out any chance of the near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4 impacting the moon in 2032, lowering the lunar collision probability from 4.3% to zero.
- The asteroid will instead pass within 13,200 miles (21,200 kilometers) of the lunar surface, closer than some artificial satellites orbit Earth, but will miss Earth by hundreds of thousands of miles during its close approach.
- JWST's sensitive infrared instruments enabled these refined trajectory estimates, capturing some of the faintest asteroid observations ever, especially since 2025 when the asteroid became unobservable by other telescopes.
- Discovered in late 2024, asteroid 2024
