\n<\/p>\n
This time last year, the world was gripped by reports that an incoming, nearly 200-feet-wide asteroid had a tiny, tiny chance of hitting the Earth in 2032. The sigh of relief that we weren\u2019t on course for a Don\u2019t Look Up scenario was palpable when, upon closer inspection, astronomers determined that the space rock, named 2024 YR4, wouldn\u2019t hit our planet after all.<\/p>\n
Instead, they calculated, it might hit the moon in 2032\u2014with a probability of about 4 percent. And now scientists are sketching out a clearer picture of what such a collision might look like from Earth.<\/p>\n
In a study that was recently posted on the preprint server arXiv.org and is yet to be peer-reviewed, astronomers found that if the asteroid does hit the moon, it will release an \u201coptical flash\u201d that will be visible from Earth, and hours of \u201cinfrared afterglow\u201d will follow the impact. It would be the \u201cmost energetic lunar impact event ever recorded in human history,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n
Scientists already knew this could be a doozy. Astronomers previously estimated that if 2024 YR4 hits the moon, it could form a crater about one kilometer wide and release some 100 million metric tons of material, some of which could reach Earth.<\/p>\n
There is no guarantee such a collision will occur, but if it does, it will be historic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this scenario plays out,\u201d said Yixuan Wu, a researcher at Tsinghua University in China and an author of the paper, to Live Science, \u201cit will be a milestone for planetary science, turning the Earth-Moon system into a grand stage for validating our understanding of asteroid impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This time last year, the world was gripped by reports that an incoming, nearly 200-feet-wide asteroid had a tiny, tiny chance of hitting the Earth in 2032. The sigh of relief that we weren\u2019t on course for a Don\u2019t Look Up scenario was palpable when, upon closer inspection, astronomers determined that the space rock, named<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[22819,22820,1871,2001,1033,1615,2977],"class_list":{"0":"post-43737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-200foot","9":"tag-2032and","10":"tag-asteroid","11":"tag-chance","12":"tag-hitting","13":"tag-moon","14":"tag-percent"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}