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Asteroid Kamo‘oalewa’s Journey From the Lunar Giordano Bruno Crater to Earth 1:1 Resonance
- Astronomers revealed that asteroid 2024 YR4, a 'city-killer' sized about 174 to 220 feet, had a 3.1% chance of hitting Earth on December 22, 2032.
- This potential threat led NASA and an international team using the James Webb Space Telescope to refine the asteroid’s trajectory, increasing its lunar impact odds from 3.8% to 4.3%.
- The asteroid is shaped like a hockey puck, rotates rapidly, is now too distant for telescopes, and could create a large lunar crater if it impacts the Moon but would not affect the Moon’s orbit or cause shockwaves on Earth.
- NASA stated the impact probability on Earth dropped near zero, with a 0.004% chance and the asteroid expected to safely pass Earth, while ESA highlighted the scientific value of observing any future lunar impact.
- Scientists will monitor 2024 YR4 again in 2028 to better assess impact risks, and the event offers a real-world exercise for planetary defense amid renewed plans for lunar exploration by several nations.
51 Articles
51 Articles
Asteroid Kamo‘oalewa’s journey from the lunar Giordano Bruno crater to Earth 1:1 resonance
Among the nearly 30,000 known near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), only tens possess Earth co-orbital characteristics with semi-major axes ~1 au. In particular, 469219 Kamo‘oalewa (2016 HO3), an upcoming target of China’s Tianwen-2 asteroid sampling mission, exhibits a meta-stable 1:1 mean-motion resonance with Earth. Intriguingly, recent ground-based observations show that Kamo‘oalewa has spectroscopic characteristics similar to space-weathered lunar s…
Chicago Sun Times
Usa newsAsteroid speck at the Field Museum could hold the key to life
A small, dark and rigid space rock that touched down at the Field Museum last week could hold the answers to the origin of life in the universe, researchers say.The rock is just a portion of a sample from asteroid Bennu collected in 2020 during NASA's 2016 OSIRIS-REx mission. Bennu then landed on Earth in 2023. It is the third asteroid sample to reach Earth and first in the U.S. Although it is very small, it's full of information and rich in org…
The approach of asteroid 2024 YR4 to our planet may represent an important framework in observing potentially dangerous objects for Earth. Since its discovery in December 2024, this space rock...
An asteroid has a 4.3% chance of causing a huge impact on the Moon in 2032. It could leave a spectacular crater and lead to a scientific breakthrough.
Currently, the probability of asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting the Moon is 4.3%. It will be in our neighborhood again in 2028.
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