NASA raises the odds that an asteroid could hit the moon in 2032.

Asteroid 2024 YR4, once considered the highest impact risk to Earth ever recorded, is back in the spotlight — this time due to a slight increase in the chance that it could impact the moon in 2032.

Although now too distant to observe from Earth, the asteroid briefly came into view in May for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Using data from the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera, a team led by Andy Rivkin of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory refined predictions of where 2024 YR4 will be on Dec. 22, 2032 by nearly 20%. That revised trajectory nudged the odds of a lunar impact from 3.8% to 4.3%, according to a NASA update.

Astronomer Pawan Kumar, a former researcher at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bengaluru, agrees the moon is safe, noting a collision with the moon "won't be a cause for concern" because any moon debris blasted into space from the impact "blow up in Earth's atmosphere if any of it makes it to near-Earth space."

First detected on Dec. 27 last year, 2024 YR4 is estimated to be about 174 to 220 feet long (53 to 67 meters), or about the size of a 10-story building. The asteroid quickly grabbed headlines for having more than a 1% chance of striking Earth, the highest recorded for any large asteroid. Follow-up observations in January and February saw the impact risk climb from 1.2% to a peak of 3.1%.

The asteroid's projected trajectory at the time suggested it could cause blast damage across a wide potential impact zone, spanning the eastern Pacific, northern South America, Africa and southern Asia. If it enters Earth's atmosphere over the ocean, NASA estimated it would be unlikely to trigger significant tsunamis, but an airburst over a populated city could shatter windows and cause minor structural damage.

Source: www.space.com

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