Asteroid With 3.8% Chance Of Hitting The Moon Originated From An Unusual Spot

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Using the Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaiʻi Island, a team of astronomers was able to identify the physical properties of asteroid 2024 YR4 and uncover its potential origin. The menacing asteroid may have broken off from a larger space rock following a collision. It also likely originated from an asteroid family in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter—an unlikely place for Earth-crossing asteroids to come from.

⁘The shape of the asteroid provides us with clues as to how it formed, and what its structural integrity is,⁘ Bryce Bolin, research scientist with Eureka Scientific, said in a statement. ⁘Knowing these properties is crucial for determining how much effort or what kind of technique needs to be used to deflect the asteroid if it is deemed a threat.⁘ This research is set for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Chile  discovered asteroid 2024 YR4 on December 27, 2024. Shortly after its discovery, NASA designated it a potentially hazardous object, with a nearly 3% chance of hitting Earth on December 22, 2032. After giving us quite the scare (or something to look forward to), NASA removed 2024 YR4 from its naughty list when calculations showed that the asteroid had a near-zero chance of hitting Earth.

The Moon, however, is still not safe from the flying space rock. NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies recently updated the odds of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting the Moon, raising the risk from 1.7% in late February to 3.8% based on recent data collected by the Webb telescope and observations from ground-based telescopes.

If it does hit, the asteroid will not alter the Moon's orbit, and instead leave behind a fresh and sizable impact crater. ⁘It's one of the largest objects in recent history that could hit the Moon,⁘ Bolin, the lead author of the new study , said. ⁘If it does, it would give scientists a rare chance to study how the size of an asteroid relates to the size of the crater it creates—something we haven't been able to measure directly before.⁘

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