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Asteroid 2024 YR4 Is No Longer a Threat to Earth, Scientists Say

This handout image released by The European Southern Observatory (ESO) on February 25, 2025, shows an image of the asteroid "2024 YR4" taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), showing a frame of the asteroid’s path through the night sky in January 2025, observed at infrared wavelengths with the HAWK-I instrument. (Handout / European Southern Observatory / AFP)
This handout image released by The European Southern Observatory (ESO) on February 25, 2025, shows an image of the asteroid "2024 YR4" taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), showing a frame of the asteroid’s path through the night sky in January 2025, observed at infrared wavelengths with the HAWK-I instrument. (Handout / European Southern Observatory / AFP)
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Asteroid 2024 YR4 Is No Longer a Threat to Earth, Scientists Say

This handout image released by The European Southern Observatory (ESO) on February 25, 2025, shows an image of the asteroid "2024 YR4" taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), showing a frame of the asteroid’s path through the night sky in January 2025, observed at infrared wavelengths with the HAWK-I instrument. (Handout / European Southern Observatory / AFP)
This handout image released by The European Southern Observatory (ESO) on February 25, 2025, shows an image of the asteroid "2024 YR4" taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), showing a frame of the asteroid’s path through the night sky in January 2025, observed at infrared wavelengths with the HAWK-I instrument. (Handout / European Southern Observatory / AFP)

Scientists have finally given the all-clear to Earth from a newly discovered asteroid.

After two months of observations, scientists have almost fully ruled out any threat from the asteroid 2024 YR4, NASA and the European Space Agency said Tuesday.

At one point, the odds of a strike in 2032 were as high as about 3% and topped the world’s asteroid-risk lists.

ESA has since lowered the odds to 0.001%. NASA had it down to 0.0027% — meaning the asteroid will safely pass Earth in 2032 and there's no threat of impact for the next century.

Paul Chodas, who heads NASA’s Center for Near Earth Objects Studies, said there is no chance the odds will rise at this point and that an impact in 2032 has been ruled out.

"That’s the outcome we expected all along, although we couldn’t be 100% sure that it would happen," he said in an email.

But there’s still a 1.7% chance that asteroid could hit the moon on Dec. 22, 2032, according to NASA. Chodas expects the odds of a moon strike will also fade.

The world's telescopes will continue to track the asteroid as it heads away from us, with the Webb Space Telescope zooming in next month to pinpoint its size. It's expected to vanish from view in another month or two.

Discovered in December, the asteroid is an estimated 130 feet to 300 feet (40 meters to 90 meters) across, and swings our way every four years.

"While this asteroid no longer poses a significant impact hazard to Earth, 2024 YR4 provided an invaluable opportunity" for study, NASA said in a statement.

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Tourist Coins Pose Giant Problem at N. Ireland's Famous Causeway Site

Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)
Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)
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Tourist Coins Pose Giant Problem at N. Ireland's Famous Causeway Site

Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)
Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)

Northern Ireland's Giant Causeway draws close to one million visitors a year but their habit of wedging tiny coins in cracks between the rocks -- to bring love or luck -- is damaging the world-famous wonder.

Now authorities are urging tourists to keep their coins in their pockets to preserve the spectacular landscape.

Some 40,000 columns mark the causeway, Northern Ireland's first UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Geologists say the natural phenomenon was created by an outpouring of basalt lava 60 million years ago.

Legend has it that the causeway was formed by Irish giant Finn McCool.

In recent decades, visitors have pushed thousands of coins into fissures in the rocks.

The gesture is "a token of love or luck", according to Cliff Henry, the causeway's nature engagement officer.

But the coins rapidly corrode and expand, causing the basalt to flake and leaving "unsightly" rust-colored streaks, Henry told AFP.

He pointed to streaks on a rock and gingerly prized out a US cent with a set of keys.

"We get a lot of euros and dollar cents. But coins from literally all over the world -- any currency you can think of, pretty much -- we have had it here," he said.

A report by the British Geological Survey in 2021 revealed that the coins were "doing some serious damage" and something had to be done about it, he noted.

Signs are now in place around the site appealing to tourists to "leave no trace".
"Once some visitors see other people have done it, they feel that they need to add to it," causeway tour guide Joan Kennedy told AFP.

She and her colleagues now gently but firmly tell tourists to desist.

At the exit from the causeway, a US couple said they were "distressed" to hear of the damage the metal caused.

"Our guide mentioned as we came up that people had been putting coins into the stones. It's really terrible to hear that," said Robert Lewis, a 75-year-old from Florida.

"It's kind of like damaging any kind of nature when you are doing something like that, putting something foreign into nature. It's not good," said his wife, Geri, 70.

As part of a £30,000 ($40,000) conservation project, stone masons recently removed as many coins as they could -- without causing further damage -- from 10 test sites around the causeway.

Henry said the trial was successful and is to be expanded across the causeway.

"If we can get all those coins removed to start with that will help the situation and hopefully no more coins will be put in," he said.

"If visitors see fewer coins in the stones and hear appeals to stop the damaging practice, the problem can maybe be solved.

"We know that visitors love and cherish the Giant's Causeway, and many form deep personal connections to it, so we want this natural wonder to remain special for future generations."