2025 YW4 is an asteroid in the Apollo orbit class. Its orbit takes it from 0.86 AU to 1.18 AU from the Sun; one orbit takes 376 days. Orbit from the JPL solution of 28 December 2025.
Where is it now
- Distance from Sun
- 1.14 AU
- True anomaly
- 216.7°
- Distance from Earth
- 0.221 AU
- As of
- 3 November 2026
Two-body Kepler propagation — accurate to ~0.1% for major planets over decades, less so for highly-perturbed bodies. Use JPL Horizons for high precision.
In the sky
- Right ascension
- 23h 42m 15s
- Declination
- +56° 11′ 35″
- Constellation
- Cassiopeia
- Distance from Earth
- 0.22 AU
- Elongation from the Sun
- 127.41° — well clear of the Sun
Favours the northern hemisphere; low or below the horizon from far south.
From your location
See how high it is right now, whether it is up after civil twilight, and when it rises and sets where you are.
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Two-body approximation, good to about a degree for the planets — enough to find the constellation and know whether it is up.
Orbital elements
- Semi-major axis
- 1.02 AU
- Eccentricity
- 0.1599
- Inclination
- 10.31°
- Orbital period
- 376 days
- Perihelion
- 0.857 AU
- Aphelion
- 1.183 AU
- Longitude of ascending node
- 276.91°
- Argument of periapsis
- 265.69°
- Epoch · J2000
- 2461200.5
- Orbit class · APO
- Apollo
- Earth MOID · 0.6 LD
- 0.0015 AU
- Tisserand (Jupiter)
- 5.963
Orbit quality
Orbit poorly determined (uncertainty code 6).
- Observations used
- 58
- Data arc
- 6 days
- First observed
- 22 December 2025
- Last observed
- 28 December 2025
- Residual RMS
- 0.33 ″
- Solution · Otto Matic
- 28 December 2025
Visual & observation
- Absolute magnitude (H)
- 25.5
Discovery & classification
Listed by JPL impact monitoring; see the Sentry table for current probabilities.
Close approaches 16 on record
Top-down view of the ecliptic, Earth at the centre, for the 2026-12-24 19:58 UTC close approach of 2025 YW4. Catalogue miss distance 70.1 LD · 2.7 × 10⁷ km. The curve is the geocentric path from 2026-12-21 to 2026-12-27, with a mark at UTC midnights and an arrow for the direction of motion. The circle is the Moon’s mean orbit; the Moon is plotted at closest approach. A ray shows the Sun’s direction. The labelled distance is the full separation. The drawn radius is the part that lies in the ecliptic plane. The path is a geocentric ecliptic ephemeris from JPL Horizons. The inset is a heliocentric view and is approximate.
| When (UTC) | Body | Distance | Lunar distances | Relative speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-12-24 19:58:00 | Earth | 0.1802 AU | 70.1 LD | 5.4 km/s |
| 2028-05-26 01:07:00 | Earth | 0.1828 AU | 71.2 LD | 5.2 km/s |
| 2029-06-30 02:40:00 | Earth | 0.0085 AU | 3.3 LD | 7 km/s |
| 2029-06-30 13:46:00 | Moon | 0.0088 AU | 3.4 LD | 7.6 km/s |
| 2030-07-07 23:58:00 | Earth | 0.1572 AU | 61.2 LD | 10.8 km/s |
| 2069-07-05 22:12:00 | Earth | 0.1213 AU | 47.2 LD | 9.8 km/s |
Next ten from today. 1 lunar distance = 384,400 km. Source: JPL close-approach data.
Sources
- visual properties: JPL SBDB (lookup)
- orbital elements: JPL SBDB