Relax Earthlings: Asteroid 2024 YR4 Will Not Hit Earth or The Moon

Asteroid 2024 YR4 was first spotted in late 2024 by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System station in Chile. Alarmingly, it was predicted it may hit us in eight years time.

Credit: NASA

Initial observations suggested it might hit Earth on 22 December 2032, and the odds rose over the following weeks. Naturally, as you may recall, there was quite a hullabaloo about this at the time, and in February 2025 NASA forecast that the space rock had a 3.1 percent chance of crashing into the place we call home, the highest probability of a strike by something this big that the agency had ever recorded.

The European Space Agency deemed it the “‘riskiest’ asteroid ever detected.” Happily, a few days later, NASA issued the all clear for earthlings.

Then, just as we were all breathing a sigh of relief, NASA issued another alert in early February this year, stating that asteroid 2024 YR4 had a 4.3 percent chance of hitting the Moon. Scientists suggested that the impact on our lunar neighbour might create a fiery flash visible from Earth and could be a rare source of scientific investigation. On the downside, NASA also highlighted the potential risk to satellites in near-Earth space, which could get hit with debris.

Now, however, the further good news is that the Moon is also in the clear. Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory used JWST’s observations of the asteroid (calculated to be 174 to 220 feet across) in late February to sharpen their understanding of the space rock’s trajectory. As a result, they have now advised that there is no risk of the asteroid smashing into the moon on 22 December 2032, either. Instead, they predict it will miss our lunar orb by 13,200 miles.