There's a slight chance Asteroid 2024 YR4 could hit Moon in 2032
Very unlikely, but could make for a neat light show if it does
There is a chance, albeit slim, that asteroid 2024 YR4 could hit the Moon, creating a new crater and an explosion that might just be visible from Earth.
The possibility was floated by space boffins in a New Scientist article, and would leave the Moon with a crater measuring anywhere from 500 to 2,000 metres across. The Moon lacks the Earth's atmosphere, so asteroids impact the lunar surface unimpeded.
According to the discussion, this would result in "an explosion 343 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima."
Readers of a certain vintage may remember the 1970s British science-fiction television series Space 1999, in which the Moon is knocked out of orbit after nuclear waste stored on its far side explodes. The result of an impact of 2024 YR4 will not have anywhere near the same dire consequences, but might just be visible from Earth.
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That's assuming it happens. The odds of the asteroid impacting the Earth are already vanishingly small – the last best guess was just over 2 percent in December 2032 – and the chances of the Moon getting in the way are even more remote. However, it will make for quite the show for anything that happens to be in the right lunar orbit.
Ghostly visitor
The Moon is due to be the recipient of other guests long before any remotely possible arrival of asteroid 2024 YR4. Last week, Firefly Aerospace confirmed that its Blue Ghost spacecraft had entered an elliptical lunar orbit as planned and is to spend the rest of the month using its thrusters and main engine to circularize its orbit and get closer to the lunar surface.
The US space agency, NASA, said the company was planning to land the Blue Ghost lunar lander no earlier than 0845 UTC on Sunday, March 2 near Mare Crisium, a plain in the northeast quadrant on the near side of the Moon.
According to the New Scientist, there is a 0.3 percent chance that the Moon might take the hit.
Scientists are currently pressing the James Webb Space Telescope into service to refine estimates for the size of the asteroid and its trajectory.
When talking about how bad the possible impact might be, size really does matter – and those observations will help to give a more accurate estimate of the chances of the Earth or Moon receiving an unwanted visitor. ®