There’s about a 4 percent chance that a building-sized asteroid will hit the moon in 2032. Moreover, there’s about a 1 percent chance that the asteroid, dubbed 2024 YR4, will not only strike the moon but also scatter a multitude of tiny meteorites into near-Earth space, potentially harming satellites and astronauts.
“This could pose a lot of risks to Earth-orbiting assets,” said NASA aerospace engineer Brent Barbee on December 17 at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting.
Should YR4 hit the moon, the impact could release as much energy as the detonation of roughly 6 million metric tons of TNT, or about 400 times the energy released by the Hiroshima bomb.
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