‘City-Killer’ Asteroid Even More Likely to Hit The Moon in 2032

An asteroid that burst onto the scene with an surprisingly prime chance of placing Earth has simply had its collision chance upgraded.

In February 2025, asteroid 2024 YR4’s most collision chance with our homeworld when it swoops again round in 2032 used to be projected to be 3.1 %.

Now its collision chance has risen to 4.3 % – now not with Earth, however the Moon.

That’s now not in particular prime, certain. But it is prime sufficient to be lovely thrilling. This affect would not damage the Moon and even have an effect on its orbit; however it might be scientifically attention-grabbing to peer the formation procedure of a big crater (and in addition in reality cool).

2024 YR4 introduced itself with a bang. Initial calculations of its trajectory discovered that it might collide with Earth in December 2032. The chance wasn’t large, however 3.1 % remains to be alarmingly prime for an tournament that might wipe out a town – the bite of rock measures between 53 and 67 meters (174 and 220 toes), related to the dimensions of the asteroid that devastated Tunguska in 1908.

Thankfully, it did not take lengthy for that chance to be downgraded to lower than a fragment of a fragment of a %, successfully ruling out the potential for an Earth-2024 YR4 collision totally.

The Moon, then again, remained within the firing line, with a collision chance of 3.8 %.

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Now, using new JWST observations obtained in May 2025, astronomers led by Andy Rivkin of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory have refined that calculation, bumping the risk to 4.3 percent.

That’s probably still not the final word on the matter; tracing an asteroid’s trajectory takes repeated observations, and 2024 YR4 is now too far away for us to see.

It comes around close to Earth every 4 years, so astronomers are going to have every other alternative to look at it carefully in December 2028. We’ll know with extra precision then how most likely the bite of area rock is to smack into our satellite tv for pc and provides us a wild display (and a host of science).