NASA’s Planetary Defense: Monitoring Asteroid Threats to Earth

NASA confirmed on Monday that asteroid 2024 YR4 will pass within 21,200 kilometers of the Moon on December 22, 2032, according to a statement from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The calculation, derived from the agency’s Near-Earth Object Observations Program, resolved earlier concerns that the asteroid had a 4.3% probability of impacting the lunar surface, as reported by CPG Click Petróleo e Gás.

The asteroid, initially detected by NASA’s planetary defense system, was tracked using the agency’s Deep Space Network and ground-based observatories. The final trajectory analysis, published in a technical brief on December 1, 2023, showed the object would miss the Moon by a margin of 5.6 lunar distances. NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office emphasized that no impact risk exists for Earth or the Moon at this time.

Details of NASA’s monitoring system, outlined in a report by La Nación, reveal the agency