‘City-killer' asteroid hurtling toward moon — this is the terrifying way it could wreak havoc on Earth
Our world could still be rocked indirectly.
'City-killer' asteroid 2024 YR4 may no longer be on a collision course with Earth, but it could pose a threat to our planet.
Astronomers have upped the odds that the cosmic boulder will crash into the moon, which could potentially cause a cloud of shrapnel to impact Earth-orbiting satellites and other spacecraft, according to a scary new study submitted to the American Astronomy Society Journals.
'We were a little bit surprised at the possibility of there being a substantial amount of material [aimed] at the Earth,' Dr. Paul Wiegert, an astronomy professor at the University of Western Ontario who helmed the research, told the New Scientist.
3 Still from an animation showing asteroid 2024 YR4 as it passes by Earth and heads toward its potential impact with the Moon.
NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/R. Proctor / SWNS
Wiegart illustrated these potential outcomes in a series of scary video simulations showing the potential fallout from a lunar crash-landing.
First discovered on December 27 of last year, YR4 sparked worldwide concern that it could strike our planet on December 23, 2032, potentially generating enough power to destroy an entire city.
At its peak on February 19, YR4 had an impact risk factor of 3.1%, making it one of the most dangerous asteroids on record.
And while follow-up observations revealed that YR4 wouldn't hit home, the odds of it striking the Moon recently jumped from 3.8% to 4.3%, according to data by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) by NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies.
3 'We were a little bit surprised at the possibility of there being a substantial amount of material [aimed] at the Earth,' said Dr. Paul Wiegert.
NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/R. Proctor / SWNS
Wiegert estimated that the asteroid would hit the Moon at 29,000 mph, creating a blast crater 0.6 miles wide, making it the largest lunar impact in the last 5,000 years.
If it strikes just right, our planet's gravity would funnel up to 10% of the resultant debris toward our planet, per the simulations.
'Intuitively, the Earth is actually quite a small target when seen from the moon, and so your intuition is that not very much material would actually hit the Earth, but it turns out that the Earth's gravity can focus that material under certain conditions,' warned Wiegert.
This debris field wouldn't threaten the planet itself, but could still have dire consequences for satellites in low orbit. By simulating the shrapnel cloud's potential trajectory 10,000 times, the team discovered that the satellites could sustain a decade's worth of damage in just a few days.
3 Artist's impression of the James Webb Telescope.
NASA / SWNS
While this barrage might not be enough to take out the satellites entirely, even impacts from small debris particles could potentially impact their functionality.
'If they were to hit a bit of a spacecraft that was a coolant pipe, or a sensor on the spacecraft exposed to space, or an antenna, then suddenly you get a loss of that particular functionality,' warned Mark Burchell, a space science lecturer at the University of Kent, UK 'You can't go and fix a satellite. A minor problem is actually a serious problem.'
Satellites wouldn't be the only spacecraft potentially in the line of fire.
Wiegert warned that the shrapnel cloud could affect the operations of Moon-orbiting spacecraft such as NASA's proposed Lunar Gateway while material displaced by the collision could potentially fall back to the Moon, impeding, rovers and even jeopardizing astronauts with the Artemis program.
Based on this model, Wiegert believes global space agencies should devise plans to deflect asteroids headed for the Moon, as well as Earth.
A spokesperson from NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office said that while 'planetary defense is not solely confined to near-Earth space,' it would be 'premature to speculate on potential response options' to 2024 YR4 hitting the moon.
Wiegert said that we will be able to refine our models on YR4's orbital trajectory when it hurtles back into view of Earth's telescopes in 2028.
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