YR4 continues to captivate global attention as NASA tracks its path, lowering the risk of Earth impact to 0.28%, but concerns remain, with a new possibility of a Moon collision.

New observations have dramatically reduced the chances of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth in 2032, lowering the risk to minimal levels, but its extraordinarily close approach will offer astronomers th

An asteroid between about 130 and 300 ft. (40 and 90 meters) in diameter has been given a 2.3% chance of it hitting Earth on Dec. 22, 2032.

Even in the increasingly unlikely event of an impact from YR4, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest appear to be safe from impact. Computer models showed areas of South America, Africa and southeast Asia would have the highest risk in the event of an impact, based on what astronomers know about the asteroid’s orbit.

YR4 has a 2% chance of hitting Earth in 2032. Astronomers are tracking it to refine estimates of its size and orbit to see how much of a risk the space rock poses.

Objects that could strike the planet will be spotted more regularly as new asteroid-hunting telescopes come online.

The risk that an increasingly ominous asteroid dubbed 2024 YR4 will crash into Earth in seven years now exceeds the the threat once posed by Apophis.