At the beginning of this year 2025, astronomers experienced moments of concern due to the discovery of the asteroid 2024 YR4, it was discovered by the Atlas network, which is the acronym in English for the latest alert system for terrestrial impact of asteroids, a system made up of a network of observatories.
If one day a total destroyer comes, a giant Armageddon-type asteroid or a comet on a collision course with the Earth, it will surely be this network that will give the first warning notice, specifically the asteroid was found by the El Sauce observatory in Ríurtado Chile on December 27, 2024, the asteroid had had its closest approach to the Earth two days before on December 25, it passed 828,775 km from us, that is almost double of the distance that separates the Earth from the Moon.
Everything seemed normal but the first analyzes of its trajectory resulted in a possibility of impact with the Earth for Wednesday, December 22, 2032. It was a small possibility, it was 2.6%, but it was not zero and the 2.6% possibility is quite significant and quite disturbing, the latest estimates are that the asteroid has a diameter of 53 to 67 m and travels at a speed of 13.7 km/second or 49,320 km/h at that speed it could circumnavigate the Earth in just 49 minutes.
Its impact would not cause a mass extinction on Earth, but it has sufficient size and kinetic energy to devastate a large city. This does not mean that there was a 2.3% risk of the asteroid destroying a large city. We must take into account that two thirds of the planet are covered by oceans and to this we must add the deserts, so the fact that the asteroid would have ended up impacting an inhabited area was a much smaller possibility than that 2.6%, but no. was zero and remained a disturbing possibility.
Then what had to be done was done, first, improve the observations and what better observation tool do we have today because the James Webb Space Observatory was not only our best option because it was the most powerful, but also the asteroid is small and at that time it was already very far from us, too far to be observed by telescopes located on the ground.
The data from the James Webb space telescope ended up reducing this possibility of impact with the Earth to zero, there was no longer a risk, therefore this possible impact on December 22, 2032 is ruled out and in principle there would be no risk of impact with our planet in this century, I say in principle for two reasons.
The first is that depending on whether it is affected by the gravity of a planet or the moon, the trajectory of the asteroid could be affected and therefore new calculations would have to be made and the second reason is an even more powerful reason, because it is possible that on December 22, 2032 the asteroid will cease to exist.
On June 5, NASA published a statement with the analysis of the Webb telescope that updated the possibilities of impact no longer with the Earth, but of impact with the Moon. The analyzes of the James Webb space telescope have slightly increased the risk of impact with the Moon. They have gone from 3.8% to 4.3% according to the data we currently have. NASA wanted to get ahead of possible shocking and sensational headlines, saying or insinuating that the Moon is going to leave orbit due to the impact with the asteroid.
The Moon did not leave its orbit due to the impact of an asteroid of 200 or 300 km in diameter, which was the one that caused the gigantic Aitken basin at the south pole of the Moon of 2,500 km in diameter, so it is not going to leave due to an asteroid of at least 67 meters, our beloved Moon is one of the largest natural satellites in the solar system by size, it is the fifth surpassed only by Ganymede, Titan, Callisto and the volcanic IO; Titan orbits Saturn and the other three orbit Jupiter.
Our dear dearest Moon is also a shield of the Earth, most of the impacts that you can see on its surface made by comets and asteroids would have been received by the Earth, most of those comets and asteroids would have ended up impacting the Earth if they had not found the shield of the moon, it is a small shield, but the moon has surely saved us from some mass extinction, that is why I will never get tired of saying about the dearest Moon.
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Impacts on the moon are definitely a concern for setting up bases and colonies. Might be a good reason to put them in craters for some protection.
Yes, definitely the lunar bases, if they ever build one, will not be superficial, and they must be underground for many reasons, I would like to live to see that!
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