Potential asteroid 2024 YR4 influence on Moon may set off large meteor bathe

FILE VIDEO: A NASA asteroid tracker explains how scientists are calculating the danger to Earth from asteroid 2024 YR4. 

What occurs if an asteroid the dimensions of a 15-story constructing crashes into the Moon in 2032?

While the probabilities of the newly found asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting the Moon in seven years are slim – there may be at present a 96% likelihood it will not occur – an influence of this dimension wouldn’t come with out penalties for the Moon, astronauts and spacecraft orbiting Earth. 

A brand new examine submitted for review by scientists with the University of Western Ontario and Athabasca University in Canada took observations from the James Webb Space Telescope of asteroid 2024 YR4 and used simulations to point out how a lot lunar particles can be ejected out into area, sending items of the Moon towards Earth.

ODDS OF ASTEROID 2024 YR4 HITTING THE MOON GO UP AGAIN

After its preliminary discovery late final 12 months, the asteroid appeared to have a small likelihood of impacting Earth, warranting worldwide consideration, and leaping to the very best asteroid menace ever given on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale. By February, extra ground-based observations of the asteroid helped clear the menace to Earth, however the Moon nonetheless faces a doable influence. 

On March 26, 2025, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured photographs of asteroid 2024 YR4 that point out the asteroid is concerning the dimension of a 15-story constructing. Researchers additionally say the asteroid’s floor could also be dominated by rocks which are perhaps fist-sized or bigger. Asteroid 2024 YR4 is smallest object focused by Webb thus far.

(NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Andy Rivkin (APL) / NASA)

Earlier this 12 months, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope helped scientists decide that the asteroid is between 175 and 220 ft in diameter. 

If Asteroid 2024 YR4 crashes into the Moon, it will create a crater greater than half a mile in diameter (1 km), changing into the most important influence in about 5,000 years, in line with the examine. Current calculations present, if it occurs, an influence would happen on the Southern Hemisphere. 

The researchers stated this influence would threaten satellites in low-Earth orbit for days or up to some months, and ship a fraction of the ejecta towards Earth. 

The present influence hall for 2024 YR4 (yellow) projected on a map of the Moon’s close to facet from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

(NASA)

Any lunar particles that makes it inside Earth’s ambiance may create a meteor bathe occasion over the planet. 

“The resulting meteor shower could last a few days and be spectacular, though the number of visible meteors somewhat muted by the low entry speed of ejecta,” the analysis workforce stated. 

With greater than 10,000 energetic satellites in low-Earth orbit and greater than 25,000 items of area junk, researchers imagine an asteroid strike to the Moon may spell bother for satellite tv for pc operators. 

“Given the very large total exposed area for satellites by 2032, it becomes possible that hundreds to thousands of impacts from mm-sized debris ejected by a lunar impact from 2024 YR4 will be experienced across the entire satellite fleet,” the examine authors wrote. “Such impacts may damage satellites, but are small enough to generally not end active missions or cause breakups.”

Rendering of NASA’s Lunar Gateway

(NASA)

The researchers say materials from the Moon may very well be a “serious hazard to moon-orbiting spacecraft” resembling NASA’s Lunar Gateway, a deliberate orbiting station for astronauts, and an “even greater danger” to any lunar floor operations. 

Asteroid 2024 YR4 has moved behind the Sun, limiting any new observations till 2028. Scientists say these new observations in just a few years will assist enhance lunar influence predictions.