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See this discussion on the Minor Planet Mailing List
https://groups.io/g/mpml/message/40160
also
and the attached Close Approach Fact Sheet from ESA
Read the facts about this NEO before ‘journalists’ go into hyperbolic warp drive about Doomsday scenarios…
Alex.
The madness has already begun. Stories written by journos who don’t really understand orbital dynamics and probability and headlines attached by sub-eds to maximise click-through.
Apparently, if you live on the Moon, you should now be very afraid:
https://www.independent.co.uk/space/asteroid-heading-earth-2024-yr4-moon-china-b2696593.html
This is at the less sensational end of the spectrum. Google will bring up others.
This is all based on some reasonable statements from David Rankin that have been mildly sensationalised in New Scientist and then got the full treatment in the “popular” media.
This interesting paper has jus been posted on Archiv:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.11217
The authors consider the potential effect of a lunar impact of 2024 YR4 on 2032 December 22. They conclude that it could temporarily increase the flux of mm sized meteoroids in near-Earth space by several orders of magnitude. This could be bad news for spacecraft in low-earth orbit but might give us a nice meteor shower.
The probability of a lunar impact is currently around 4% and the high end of their flux predictions require some relatively unlikely alignments to happen but it is definitely an interesting read.
Interesting!
Looks like a 4% chance of a visit to Australia on Dec 22nd 2032. The view of the Earth from the Moon at possible impact time.
Attachments:
Asteroid 2024 YR4 will not impact the Moon
https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Planetary_Defence/Asteroid_2024_YR4_will_not_impact_the_Moon
Alex.
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