Possible December asteroids

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David Kazdan

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Jul 29, 2025, 11:05:27 AMJul 29

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ASTEROID STRIKE COULD CAUSE A MOONDUST METEOR STORM: Mark your calendar. If asteroid 2024 YR4 hits the Moon on Dec. 22, 2032, Earth could experience a rare meteor storm made entirely of moondust.

Astronomers at the University of Western Ontario have analyzed what might happen if the 60-meter-wide space rock slams into the lunar surface seven years from now. In a new paper, they report that the impact would release as much energy as 6.5 megatons of TNT, blasting out a kilometer-wide crater and ejecting up to 100 million kilograms of lunar debris.

Above: The amount of debris that reaches Earth depends sensitively on where the asteroid strikes. Wiegert's team simulated impacts along the yellow-dotted corridor of possibilities.

"Up to 10% of the lunar ejecta could reach Earth within days," says planetary scientist Paul Wiegert, the leader of the study. "The resulting meteor shower could be eye-catching, with meteor rates orders of magnitude above usual background rates."

Earth's upper atmosphere would be peppered by lunar material arriving at relatively low speeds--about 11 km/s. That's much slower than typical meteors. Perseids, for instance, hit Earth at 59 km/s. As a result, the lunar meteors would appear slower, dimmer, and longer-lasting than usual. Still, they could be visible to the naked eye and quite numerous.

Their simulations suggest that the storm could go on for days:

And here's the kicker: Nearly every visible meteor in this shower would be a piece of the Moon.

The authors estimate a 4% chance of impact. That’s small, but significant. The odds will be updated in 2028, when asteroid 2024 YR4 emerges from the glare of the sun and becomes observable again. If it is on target, the asteroid could deliver the largest lunar impact in approximately 5000 years.