The asteroid 2024 YR4, measuring roughly 60 meters across, carries about a 4% chance of impacting the Moon in December 2032. While the odds remain slim, scientists have begun seriously analyzing the potential ramifications, as reported by the Universe Today portal.
Should the asteroid strike the Moon on December 22, 2032, the energy released from this incident would be comparable to a medium-yield thermonuclear explosion. This equates to a million times the power of the last major documented impact on the Moon in 2013, which was caused by a significantly smaller meteoroid.
Consequently, researchers predict the formation of a crater approximately 1 kilometer in diameter and up to 260 meters deep, with a pool of molten rock up to 100 meters thick solidifying at its center. The resulting flash and plasma ejection would be easily observable from Earth, particularly from the Pacific Ocean region where it would be nighttime.
For planetary scientists and high-energy process physicists, this event would represent an unparalleled chance to witness a major lunar impact in real-time, rather than relying on post-event reconstruction from existing scars.
The liquefied material will take several days to cool post-impact, providing experts with an opportunity to study crater formation and heat exchange dynamics using infrared telescopes.
The collision is also expected to trigger a global “moonquake” registering around magnitude 5, making it the most powerful seismic event ever recorded on the Moon. Scientists intend to analyze the propagation of these seismic waves to glean new insights into the Moon’s internal structure, bypassing the need for artificial explosive testing.
Another consequence of the strike will be a debris cloud. Up to 400 kilograms of lunar material could reach Earth after traversing the atmosphere as meteors. The majority will burn up, but some fragments could potentially be recovered, yielding valuable samples of lunar regolith for subsequent analysis.
Modeling suggests a peak rate of up to 20 million meteor events per hour, with hundreds of brilliant fireballs per hour being probable.
However, the phenomenon carries a distinct hazard. Falling fragments will bombard areas across South America, North Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. These are mostly sparsely populated regions, but damage to towns and other inhabited centers remains a possibility.
Risks to orbital infrastructure are also significant. The debris stream could potentially compromise satellites. Therefore, space agencies are discussing the possibility of a dedicated asteroid deflection mission, though no final decision has been reached.
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