Most of the time, asteroids are nothing more than a curiosity passing by our planet or burning up in the atmosphere to create lovely sights we call comets, but it seems that an upcoming meteor shower could present a danger to Earth’s satellites.
Specifically, after astronomers detected asteroid 2024 YR4 in December last year, they realized it’s no threat to Earth, but could still impact the Moon in 2032, and the debris from that impact might trigger a massive meteor shower – and endanger our satellites, per a Phys report on June 17.
Indeed, the incoming asteroid measures about 53 to 67 meters (174 to 220 feet) in diameter, roughly the same size as the asteroid responsible for the Tunguska Event in 1908, a massive explosion in a remote area of Siberia following a possible airburst of a large asteroid or comet.
Meteor storm from an asteroid impact to the Moon
If it does hit the Moon, for which there’s about a 4% chance, the blast would match an explosion of about 65 kilotons of TNT and produce a crater of about 1 km (0.62 miles) in diameter. At the same time, it would eject about 100,000,000 tons (10^8 kg) of debris into space, which might put satellites in harm’s way.
According to a study titled ‘The Potential Danger of Satellites due to Ejecta from a 2032 Lunar Impact by Asteroid 2024 YR4,” this doesn’t mean all of the debris would arrive on Earth, but still, as much as 10% of it could, resulting in a decade’s worth of equivalent background meteoroid impact exposure.
As the authors explained:
“Of primary concern are ejecta particles above the impact hazard threshold (0.1 mm) for satellites delivered directly to low Earth orbit (LEO) on relatively short (days to a few months) timescales and that could pose a hazard to spacecraft.”
That said, the team, headed by lead author, Paul Weigert from the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Institute for Earth and Space Exploration (IESX) at the University of Western Ontario, doesn’t believe the potential damage to satellites would be mission-ending.
Meanwhile, if the 2024 YR4 somehow manages to miss our natural satellite and head straight for the planet, striking a city, astronomers pointed out that it would lead to significant damage and some fatalities, but it wouldn’t wipe it off the map, and hitting the middle of the ocean would possibly not even cause a tsunami.
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