The Asteroid News

11/04/2025

Hey Teachers - want your students to discover an asteroid ?
Then check out our AWB-IASC Asteroid Search Campaign in starting April 23.
🔺Hurry - applications open until April 15 !
Learn more here: https://shorturl.at/FQUhV
All IASC Asteroid Search Campaigns are completely compatible with remote access. Participants around the world regularly communicate through email and collaborate to analyze the image sets to make a real discovery!




IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach Sky & Telescope

03/03/2025

How to Create an Asteroid Impact Risk Corridor Using Find_Orb
By Steven M. Tilley https://theasteroidnews.com/How-to-create-an-Asteroid-Impact-Risk-corridor-Using-Find_Orb.html

01/03/2025

2024 YR4 is no longer a danger for Earth, and a (small) chance of a lunar impact could provide great science data.

2024 YR4 is no longer a danger for Earth, and a (small) chance of a lunar impact could provide great science data.

26/02/2025

I have been running Monte Carlo simulations for 2024 YR4 and the Moon for Epoch 2032 Dec 22.635417 [2032 Dec 22 15:15:00 (3:15 PM) UTC] using Find_Orb, then with the help of Excel and Notepad, creating a KML file and using Google Earth/Moon to show a risk corridor for the Moon.

24/02/2025

Latest Calculations Conclude Asteroid 2024 YR4 Now Poses No Significant Threat to Earth in 2032 and Beyond

Latest Calculations Conclude Asteroid 2024 YR4 Now Poses No Significant Threat to Earth in 2032 and Beyond NASA has significantly lowered the risk of near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4 as an impact threat to Earth for the foreseeable future. When first discovered, asteroid 2024 YR4 had a very small, but n...

23/02/2025

Update NASA JPL now their prediction of a nominal distance 42.00 (Re) Earth radii at 2032-Dec-22 08:35 ±04:20(TDB) for 2024 YR4 https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html #/?sstr=54509621&view=OPC [The nominal distance is the most likely] note the Minimum Distance of 9.62 (Re) Earth radii (2025 02 23) [3-sigma]

20/02/2025

A well-done opinion piece "The chances of this asteroid hitting Earth keep rising. But there are four reasons I’m not worried yet" by Carrie Nugent in the Guardian
https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/20/asteroid-2024-yr4-earth-scientists-dangers-space [however note as of 2025-Feb-19 the risk is lower to 1.5%]

Scientists are closely monitoring 2024 YR4 – it reminds us of the dangers lurking in space, says associate professor of planetary science Carrie Nugent

19/02/2025

FYI from 2024 YR4: Science data about NEO asteroid
2024YR4
2024 YR4 planetary defense is serious. If interested in science don't follow or pay attention to crypto coin scams like
YR4Tracker , 2024_Yr4_A or 2024YR4Coin . They are farming users based in your interest to increase the value of crypto meme coins. That risk is real!
https://twitter.com/2024YR4/status/1892322153070055801

18/02/2025

The world's largest single-aperture optical telescope is the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias which submitted observations of asteroid 2024 YR4 on 2024-Jan-13 when the object was near mag 21 in g band. This telescope is on the list of 8-10 m class telescopes in the IAWN observing plans. Its HiPERCAM instrument can reach mag 28 in g' band with 4-hour integrations under sub-arcsecond seeing conditions. The HiPERCAM instrument observes in multiple optical bands simultaneously (u', g', r', i', z'). Gran Telescopio Canarias is a 10.4 meter reflecting telescope located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands, Spain. This telescope was used in September 2024 and with others to confirm the lunar origin of minimoon asteroid 2024 PT5 published February 2025. This telescope observed Didymos in 2017 to examine the ejecta from the DART spacecraft impact.

ESA photo of Gran Telescopio Canarias

15/02/2025

So far 53 observatories from around the word have submitted observations of the risk list asteroid 2024 YR4 here is a map of (my) risk corridor and locations of observatories helping to track it.

02/02/2025

I have been running Monte Carlo simulations daily on 2024 YR4. Here is yesterday's run in "red." I used 315 unfiltered observations (2024-12-25 2025-02-01). Monte Carlo noise 0.5. If I let it run longer, the gaps would be filled, and it would be one red line. I am using Find_Orb

01/02/2025

from Franck Marchis
on X There is an interesting occultation by the potentially hazardous asteroid 2024YR4 on Feb 6 of a bright 11-mag star. The uncertainty is large and the occultation will be partial because of the diffraction but if we line up hundreds unistellar telescopes along the path of uncertainty we may be able to catch it, so refine its orbit. here is the tweet https://x.com/AllPlanets/status/1885509351714234425