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This animation shows asteroid 2024 YR4 as it passes by Earth and heads toward its potential impact with the Moon. This 3D shape of the asteroid was determined from data obtained on 7 February 2025 with the Gemini South telescope in Chile, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by NSF NOIRLab. Using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS), a team of astronomers took images of the asteroid through four different filters. The observations allowed the team to determine its composition, orbital characteristics and 3D shape."

a data-transmitting weather balloon at Summit Station, a remote research site operated by the U.S. National Science Foundation on top of the Greenland ice sheet. by Brennan Linsley