You Can Stop Losing Sleep Over That Asteroid

It looks like 2024 YR4 may be a nothingburger after all. The asteroid was discovered at the end of last year and is expected to make a super-close drive-by in 2032—but it grabbed a sea of headlines last week after NASA put the odds of it making a direct hit with Earth as high as 3.1%. What a difference a few days makes: As of Monday, the NASA JPL Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) gives the 2024 YR4 impact probability as 0.0017%. CNN reports the European Space Agency's risk assessment is a similarly low 0.002%. As MIT planetary science professor Richard Binzel tells Space.com, "That's impact probability zero folks!" NASA explains:

• "As observations of the asteroid continued to be submitted to the Minor Planet Center, experts at [CNEOS] were able to calculate more precise models of the asteroid's trajectory and now have found there is no significant potential for this asteroid to impact our planet for the next century. The latest observations have further reduced the uncertainty of its future trajectory, and the range of possible locations the asteroid could be on Dec. 22, 2032, has moved farther away from the Earth."

The NASA blog post reports the moon isn't entirely off the hook, however. It notes there still remains a very small chance—currently 1.7%—that asteroid 2024 YR4 will impact the moon on that date. (More 2024 YR4 stories.)