NASA doubles odds of Moon hitting near-Earth asteroid

The likelihood of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting the Moon, during Christmas 2032, has more than doubled.

The space rock made headlines in February when it was said to be the most dangerous object of its kind in the Solar System to Earth. Sadly, the chance of it whacking our home world was cut to 0.004 percent following further observations. Now scientists reckon there’s nearly a one-in-25 chance of YR4 slamming into Earth’s natural satellite.

“Experts at NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have updated 2024 YR4’s chance of impacting the Moon on December 22, 2032 from 1.7 as of late February to 3.8 percent,” the agency said this week.

“There is still a 96.2 percent chance that the asteroid will miss the Moon. In the small chance that the asteroid were to impact, it would not alter the Moon’s orbit.”

The asteroid was spotted by an automatic telescope on Christmas Day last year, and its potential to smash into Earth was figured out a few days later. After its orbit was further studied, NASA suggested the Moon could also get in its way, at first estimating the chance of lunar impact at 0.3 percent.

NASA has been using the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) to check out 2024 YR4 to determine its size and composition. The results show this is a somewhat unusual visitor.

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“We found that the thermal properties of 2024 YR4, in other words how quickly it heats up and cools down, and how hot it is at its current distance from the Sun, are not like what we see in larger asteroids,” the JWST team reported.

“We think this is likely a combination of its very fast spin and a lack of fine-grained sand on its surface. We’ll need more data to say for sure, but it seems consistent with a surface dominated by rocks that are maybe fist-sized or larger. And of course, our main goal was measuring the size of 2024 YR4, which we estimate at about 60 metres (200 feet).”

So what is going to happen when a rock that size slams into the Moon? Well, according to NASA not a lot. It will form a small crater, nothing the size of the largest lunar impact: The South Pole-Aitken basin.

Of course, in 2032 there may be a permanent human presence on the Moon, with both the US, Russia, and China planning to set up shop there in the future, and ESA is also investigating the possibilities. But even if 2024 YR4 does hit, the chances of humans being in danger would be infinitesimally small. Hopefully. ®