An asteroid might hit the moon in 2032. What will occur then? What are our choices?

Asteroid 2024 YR4 was found final yr, when astronomers calculated that it had a 3% probability of hitting the earth. Trajectory fashions have since been refined, and scientists now not consider that it’s going to strike the earth. The asteroid does, nonetheless, have a 4% probability of hitting the moon.

A current paper from greater than a dozen researchers, together with a number of NASA scientists, explores the query of how we will keep away from a doable collision between the asteroid and the moon.

The paper, which is but to be peer reviewed, was spearheaded by Brent Barbee from the Department of Aerospace Engineering on the University of Maryland and a flight Dynamics Engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. It lays out three doable strategies to cope with 2024 YR4. Here’s what they’re:

Deflection

Deflection means giving the asteroid a small push to vary its path so it misses the moon. NASA examined this in 2022 with the DART mission, smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid to shift its orbit.

For 2024 YR4, although, that is dangerous, as scientists don’t know precisely what it’s product of. Observations counsel it’s about 60 metres large and stony, however its mass is unsure – it might be a strong rock or a free pile of rubble. A nudge would possibly break it into items, and a kind of items might nonetheless hit the moon.

“Deflection missions had been assessed and seem impractical,” the paper stated.

Robust disruption

Since deflecting the asteroid is out of query, the subsequent chance is powerful disruption. This means hitting the asteroid with sufficient power to interrupt it into items no bigger than 10 metres. The fragments would unfold out and now not be a risk, defined ZME Science.

Researchers say a heavier, quicker model of the DART spacecraft might do that, and there are launch home windows that will permit a mission earlier than 2032.

Nuclear explosion

The final possibility is a nuclear explosive machine detonated a brief distance from the asteroid. A standoff blast would vapourise a skinny layer of floor rock, and that vaporised materials would blow off and shatter the asteroid. The paper finds a 1‑megaton machine might robustly break even the heaviest model of 2024 YR4, with a secure detonation distance of about 85 metres — roughly 60 occasions the yield of the Hiroshima bomb.

What will occur if the asteroid hits the moon?

If the asteroid does hit the moon in 2032, its affect might launch an enormous cloud of lunar rock and mud. Some of this particles would possibly attain low‑earth orbit, posing a critical danger to satellites and even spacecraft.

“This might produce particles as much as 1,000 occasions above background ranges over only a few days, probably threatening astronauts and spacecraft,” the researchers wrote within the paper.