NASA warns colossal asteroid may hit the Moon in 2032 after Earth near-miss
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has helped astronomers determine that the asteroid 2024 YR4, which was initially thought to collide with Earth on December 22, 2032, will miss our planet
The colossal asteroid, known as 2024 YR4, was initially thought to be on a collision course with Earth on December 22, 2032. However, fresh data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made scientists think that the moon might take the hit instead.
In a recent study, an international team of astronomers revealed: “While an Earth impact by 2024 YR4 on December 22, 2032, has now been ruled out, it continues to have a non-zero probability of impacting the Moon at this time.”
They highlighted that JWST is set to conduct further observations of 2024 YR4 in May 2025, to “primarily help refine the orbital and thermal properties” of the celestial body.
NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, or CNEOS, has taken a closer look at asteroid 2024 YR4 and found that the odds of it striking Earth in 2032 have risen to 2.3 percent from about 1 percent.
According to the latest calculations by University of Arizona astronomer David Rankin, there’s a minuscule chance, around 0.3 per cent, that the 90-meter-wide asteroid could crash into the Moon. Given the lack of an atmosphere like Earth’s to slow down incoming asteroids, a collision with the lunar surface by such a large object could create a crater spanning hundreds of meters and catapult debris into space.
Scientists have even theorised that if 2024 YR4 were to hit the Moon, fragments from our celestial neighbour could rain down on Earth.
Rankin told New Scientist: “There is the possibility this would eject some material back out that could hit the Earth, but I highly doubt it would cause any major threat.”
Yet, CBS News space analyst Bill Harwood sounded the alarm, cautioning that if YR4 were to crash into a densely populated area on Earth, the results would be “be truly catastrophic,” though limited in scale.
Harwood said: “It wouldn’t be something like the rock that killed the dinosaurs. It wouldn’t affect the global climate, but it would certainly be a disaster of every proportion. So we’re all hoping that doesn’t happen.”
Digital simulations previously painted a grim picture of the potential devastation had 2024 YR4 struck Earth as once feared.
The asteroid’s impact could unleash energy comparable to 8 megatons of TNT, enough to obliterate an area as large as Washington, D.C..
Such a blast would dwarf the destructive power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb by more than 500 times, that bomb was about 15 kilotons (or 0.015 megatons).
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