Asteroid 2024 YR4 Won’t Strike the Moon in 2032, Negating the Chance of a Violent Lunar Impact
The commotion over asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting the moon can finally simmer down, as it has been announced that the moon is officially safe from impact. Watching the asteroid over the past year has been a roller coaster, as estimations of impact wavered time and time again. It appears, however, that 2024 YR4 will simply pass by the moon and go on its merry way.
The lunar impact has been called off thanks to new data collected by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in February. NASA scientists now say that 2024 YR4 will pass by the moon at a distance of 13,200 miles. This updated verdict underscores the importance of continuously observing near-Earth objects, as impact probabilities tend to dwindle once sufficient data are available.
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Panic Over Asteroid 2024 YR4
2024 YR4 startled everyone when the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Alert System station in Chile discovered it on December 27, 2024. At first, scientists estimated that it had a little over 1 percent chance of hitting Earth on December 22, 2032. That probability steadily climbed to 3.1 percent by February 2025.
Fears also escalated because of 2024 YR4’s more sinister nickname: the “city-killer.” While this name isn’t quite as fitting as it once was, it doesn’t lie about the destructive potential of 2024 YR4. The asteroid measures somewhere between 174 and 220 feet (about the size of a 15-story building), and if it were to impact Earth, it would be capable of inflicting devastating harm to population centers.
Safe From Impact
We no longer need to worry about an impact with Earth, as scientists announced last April that 2024 YR4 would miss our planet. But just as the impact risk with Earth dropped entirely, the probability that it would instead hit the moon rose. By June, scientists were saying that 2024 YR4 had a 4.3 percent chance of hitting the moon, and for months, this number didn’t budge.
Now, based on JWST observations, experts from NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies have confirmed that the asteroid will pass the moon in 2032. It was previously assumed that 2024 YR4, which faded from view last spring, wouldn’t be visible again until 2028, but scientists found two narrow opportunities to observe the asteroid, on February 18 and 26, 2026.
According to a statement from the European Space Agency, this is because JWST could detect a faint speck (representing 2024 YR4) “against a sparse backdrop of stars whose positions are very well known.”
Scientists were able to withdraw the lunar impact risk because of an improved understanding of where the asteroid will be in 2032, rather than a shift in its orbital path, according to a NASA statement.
Finally, everyone can relax — Earth and the moon are safe from asteroid 2024 YR4.
Dropping Down to Zero
Observations of 2024 YR4 brought plenty of ups and downs last year, but why did the impact risk keep changing so often?
According to NASA scientists, this is a completely normal outcome when monitoring near-Earth objects (NEOs). In a statement from the Planetary Society last January, Bruce Betts, Planetary Society Chief Scientist, wrote that it’s common for “the odds of impact go up before they drop to zero.” As more data is collected for asteroids like 2024 YR4, scientists can fill in the blanks and prove that an impact won’t happen.
As of December 2025, NASA keeps track of more than 40,000 near-Earth asteroids of varying sizes. The agency also runs a web page dedicated to sharing information on the most recent NEO close approaches to Earth. For instance, nine objects will come close together between March 7 and March 9, 2026. While this may sound frightening, the reality is that these objects will usually still be millions of miles away from Earth.
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