Dangerous Space
This is the text version of the interactive 3D documentary. 한국어
Danger ranking › Impact threats
2024 YR4
Impact threats · retired threat · Briefly a 3% impact chance in 2025 — ruled out for Earth within days
View in 3D- Name
- 2024 YR4
- Type
- Near-Earth asteroid
- Size
- About 60 m across
- Distance
- 770 million km from Earth · light takes 42 min 59 s (Position on 2026-11-04 · JPL Horizons)
The story in 1 scene
Briefly 3%
The ATLAS telescope in Chile discovered this asteroid in December 2024. In February 2025, its chance of hitting Earth in December 2032 rose above 3%, and it was rated 3 on the Torino scale. For an object at least 50 m wide, that was the highest chance ever recorded.
Why?It is the same story as Apophis. Early on, the range of possible orbits was wide, and Earth was inside it.
What nextWithin days, new observations pushed Earth’s impact chance below 0.004%. The James Webb Space Telescope measured it at about 60 m across. As of mid-2025, there was still about a 4% chance it could hit the Moon in 2032.
See this scene in 3D →Sources
JPL Small-Body Database: 2024 YR4 · Wikipedia: 2024 YR4
Impact-threat rankings and probabilities follow NASA/JPL’s Sentry risk table (as of 2026-11-04). The other categories are editorial rankings using the published criteria. Distances to stars can carry large uncertainties.