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LiveScience
LiveScience
Brandon Specktor

James Webb telescope takes emergency look at 'city-killer' asteroid 2024 YR4 ahead of close encounter in 2032

Satellite images of a distant asteroid, appearing as a fuzzy pinkish dot.

The powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has just completed the first of two planned observations of the infamous "city-killer" asteroid 2024 YR4, which will make a perilously close approach to Earth and the moon in December 2032.

Making use of emergency telescope time awarded to an international team of astronomers in February, JWST's first observation of the building-size asteroid reveals that 2024 YR4 may be slightly larger and rockier than previous ground-based telescope studies suggested.

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