Asteroid YR4

Prelims: Current events of national and international importance| Indian Geography

Why in news?

Recently NASA announced that there was a 3.8% chance Asteroid YR4 could collide with the moon on December 22, 2032.

• Asteroid YR4 – It is a near-earth asteroid, an object orbiting the sun whose closest approach to the star is within 1.3-times the earth-sun distance.

Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are asteroids with orbits that bring them close to Earth, potentially crossing Earth's orbital path.

• Such asteroids are classified as potentially hazardous objects if their orbits cross the earth’s and they are more than 140 m wide.
• Discovery – It was discovered in December 2024 using ATLAS telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile.

The ATLAS telescope is a NASA-funded asteroid detection system that scans the entire night sky every 24 hours for near-Earth objects (NEOs) with four telescopes now operating in Hawaii, Chile, and South Africa.

• Physical characteristics – Infrared observations from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed a clearer picture of the asteroid’s size.
• It is now estimated to be 65 m wide, about the size of a 10-storey building.

• For comparison, dinosaur-extinction asteroid was 10 km wide.
• Earth Impact Assessment – NASA initially predicted that the asteroid has 3.1% chance of hitting Earth in 2032.
• Later revised assessment that the chance of hitting Earth is actually negligible.
• Moon Impact Possibility – NASA now predicts that there is 3.8% chance of colliding with moon on December 22, 2032.
• If impact occurs, would create 500-2,000-meter-wide crater.
• Impact explosion would be 340 times more powerful than Hiroshima bomb.

• Future monitoring - YR4 will pass by Earth again in 2028 and this will provide opportunity to collect more data after four-year gap.
• It will provoide opportunity to acquire more data, with refined models, and develop a better picture of whether the asteroid might strike the moon.

Reference

The Hindu| Asteroid YR4