{"id":331357,"date":"2026-03-06T03:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T03:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331357\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T03:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T03:58:08","slug":"nasa-rules-out-chance-of-lunar-asteroid-impact-in-2032","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331357\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA rules out chance of lunar asteroid impact in 2032"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">March 5 (UPI) &#8212; NASA on Thursday walked back a prediction that an asteroid had a &#8220;small, but notable&#8221; chance of impacting Earth or the moon in 2032 based on newly analyzed data.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Scientists said that near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4 is expected to pass by the lunar surface from more than 13,000 miles away, after previous concerns that it was destined for an impact with Earth&#8217;s natural satellite.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The update, which comes as 2024 YR4 has been unobservable from nearly all Earth and space-based observatories since spring 2025, is based on &#8220;where the asteroid is expected to be in 2032 rather than a shift in its orbital path,&#8221; NASA said in <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/blogs\/planetary-defense\/2026\/03\/05\/new-nasa-asteroid-observations-eliminate-chance-of-2032-lunar-impact\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:a news release;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">a news release<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Over time, with more observations collected by observatories around the world, NASA concluded the object poses no significant risk to Earth on Dec. 22, 2032, or through the next century,&#8221; the space agency said. &#8220;It&#8217;s typical to have initial observations and risk models updated once additional observational data is gathered and models are able to be refined.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The asteroid, which NASA said is 174 to 220 feet in size &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/blogs\/webb\/2025\/04\/02\/nasas-webb-finds-asteroid-2024-yr4-is-building-sized\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:roughly the size;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">roughly the size<\/a> of a 10- to 15-story building &#8212; was discovered in late 2024 by NASA&#8217;s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System station in Chile.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Based on available data, the agency initially thought that 2024 YR4 posed a potential threat to Earth in 2032 but, by early 2025 NASA lowered the risk of an Earth impact <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/Science_News\/2025\/04\/03\/NASA-asteroid-Earth-moon\/5931743679330\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:to &quot;near-zero.&quot;;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">to &#8220;near-zero.&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">With that announcement, however, scientists said the risk for a lunar impact some time in 2032 had increased from 1.7% to 3.8%, which was later updated to a 4.3% chance of hitting the moon on Dec. 22, 2032.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The new analyses are of observations and data gathered by the James Webb Space Telescope on Feb. 18 and Feb. 26, which researchers at NASA&#8217;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said &#8220;increased the certainty of where the asteroid will be in the future and decreased the range of possible locations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This use of the JSWT is among the faintest ever observations of an asteroid, NASA said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;With this new data, 2024 YR4 is expected to pass by the moon at a distance of 13,200 miles and lunar impact is no longer a possibility,&#8221; they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 5 (UPI) &#8212; NASA on Thursday walked back a prediction that an asteroid had a &#8220;small, but&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,152749,60,37668,152748,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-331357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-impacting-earth","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-lunar-impact","12":"tag-nasa-scientists","13":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}