NASA revises impact risk for asteroid 2024 YR4
February 22, 2025
NASA’s latest observations of near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4 have eased concerns over a potential Earth impact.
Data gathered overnight on February 19–20 have now reduced the estimated probability of a collision on December 22, 2032, to 0.28%. However, the new findings indicate that the risk of an impact with the Moon has risen slightly to 1%.
NASA’s planetary defence team will continue to monitor the asteroid closely, working to improve predictions of its trajectory as it travels through space.
The latest updates are being made available through the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s automated Sentry system, which continuously assesses near-Earth object threats.
Although the asteroid poses minimal risk, the new findings highlight the importance of continued monitoring to ensure early detection and accurate predictions of potentially hazardous space objects, NASA said.
On February 18, NASA updated the impact probability of asteroid 2024 YR4 in 2032 to 3.1%. This was the highest impact probability NASA had ever recorded for an object of this size or larger.
A day later, new data reduced the impact probability to 1.5%. The further drop to 0.28% came as welcome to news to NASA and all Earth-dwellers.
