The wait for 2024 YR4 may be shorter than expected. Astronomers have identified narrow opportunities when the James Webb Space Telescope could try to recover the asteroid this year, even though it has faded far beyond the practical reach of ground-based telescopes.
This is a needle-in-a-starry-haystack job. Webb sees only a small patch of sky at once, while YR4’s exact position grows less certain as time passes without a measurement. The trick is to choose moments when the asteroid’s predicted path crosses a relatively uncluttered star field. Gaia’s exquisitely mapped background stars can then act like road signs, helping researchers pin down any moving speck.
The reward could be a much better forecast for December 22, 2032. YR4 currently carries a 4.3% chance of a lunar impact, and fresh positions could move that estimate in either direction. No result is guaranteed—not even a detection—but asking a telescope designed for the universe’s earliest galaxies to find a 60-meter rock is exactly the kind of audacious astronomy worth attempting.