Tootfinder

So there is an upcoming novel about #asteroid #2024YR4 which has just sold its movie rights: #TheLastOrbit eventually figure out that it's not only no risk for Earth anymore (as has been known for a year now, of course) but also not for the Moon. Talk about bad timing ... ;-)

#2024YR4 - Identification of Possible Precoveries in 2016 IPTF Data: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.00449 -> "These candidate detections, not accounting for any currently-undetected Yarkovsky forces, predict a perilune of 22001 /- 49 km and a perigee of 277534 /- 46 km (relative to the center of each respective body) representing an improvement of > 300 times in the approach distance uncertainty above the existing orbit solution and, if confirmed, decisively ruling out a lunar impact in 2032" -> https://groups.io/g/mpml/message/41437

New observations of the #NearEarthAsteroid #2024YR4 with the #Webb Telescope are now also, like the recently discovered precovery positions, firmly excluding a crash into the Moon: https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/planetary-defense/2026/03/05/new-nasa-asteroid-observations-eliminate-chance-of-2032-lunar-impact/ - all the studies (and speculations) about consequences for Earth of such a lunar impact are now merely an exercise. But one day ... ;-)