Asteroid 2024 YR4 is on collision course with the moon and could fire shrapnel at Earth

The asteroid 2024 YR4, which was once considered to be on a collision trajectory with the earth, can always constitute a threat to the planet. There is still a chance that Space Rock can break in the moon, and the resulting explosion could shake the earth with a cloud of destructive shells by satellite.

Astronomers followed the asteroid the size of a building since its discovery in December 2024, when the initial forecasts of its path raised the possibility of a collision with the earth in 2032. Such a collision would have published enough explosive power to destroy a city, but fortunately, follow -up observations have shown that 2024 YR4 will almost certainly miss our planet.

The chance of a collision with the Moon, however, has slowly increased, and is now 4.3% on the basis of the latest observations taken before the asteroid flies out of sight of our telescopes until 2028. And according to Paul Wiegert at the University of Western Ontario in Canada and its colleagues, such a collision could still cause significant damage to the earth satellites.

“We were a little surprised by the possibility that there is a substantial amount of equipment on earth,” explains Wiegert. “Intuitively, the earth is actually a fairly small target when seen from the moon, and therefore your intuition is that not much material would actually strike the earth, but it turns out that the gravity of the earth can concentrate this material under certain conditions.”

Wiegert and his team calculated that 2024 YR4 could create a large kilometer crater on the moon – the largest lunar impact for at least the last 5000 years, although relatively small compared to a typical crater. An impact of this size would eject a cloud of debris in space, and by simulating its potential behavior 10,000 times, the team found that this could lead the satellites to the earth to feel a level of collisions equivalent to what we expect to see in the years or even decades, but occurring in a few days.

Although these collisions may not be sufficient to eliminate whole satellites, they could cause abnormal readings due to electric flashes, although it is difficult to model exactly how harmful it will be for satellites, explains Wiegert.

If we have no chance, the effect of debris particles could be particularly bad, explains Mark Burchell at the University of Kent, in the United Kingdom. “If they had to strike a bit of a spacecraft which was a coolant hose, or a sensor on the spacecraft exposed to space, or an antenna, then suddenly, you get a loss of this particular feature,” he said. “You cannot repair a satellite. A minor problem is actually a serious problem.”

Wiegert says that the results should make world space agencies think about the deviation of asteroids that will strike the moon, as well as the earth. A spokesperson for the NASA planetary defense coordination office says that his work consists in “identifying almost land objects (Neos) which could pose a danger of impact on earth, therefore planetary defense is not limited only to space close to the earth”, but that it would be “premature to speculate on potential response options” to 2024 years hit the moon.

Depending on the way things are happening, we may have to act quickly. When 2024 YR4 returns in view of the land’s telescopes in 2028, we should be able to quickly refine our knowledge of its exact orbital path, explains Wiegert. If the chances of hitting the moon increase, it will give us a four-year window to decide if we have to act, he said.