Forget asteroid 2024 YR4; two space rocks crashed into the Moon last week. A Japanese astronomer observed two massive bursts of light on the Moon and started scrambling for answers. Experts have now ascertained that it was the result of two asteroid strikes that likely gouged two massive craters on the lunar surface. The first one crashed on October 30, with the second following on November 1. The collisions were captured by Daichi Fujii, an astronomer and curator of the Hiratsuka City Museum. He shared footage of the event, explaining where the asteroids came from and why the phenomenon was visible. “Since the moon has no atmosphere, meteors cannot be seen, and it lights up at the moment a crater is formed,” Fujii wrote on X. He stated that the burst of light likely happened either from the Southern Taurid Meteor Shower or the Northern Meteor Shower.
Fujii told Space.com that the first meteoroid weighed around 0.18 kg and would have created a 10-foot-wide crater on impact. He believes that the impact was possibly bigger than what the telescope saw since the pixels were saturated. The second asteroid that struck the moon on November 1 also likely came from the same Halloween meteor shower. In the absence of an atmosphere, meteors race at staggering speeds towards the Moon with nothing to slow them down. Some of them travel at speeds of 257,000 km/hr. This resulted in the bright burst of light that Fujii captured. Experts say that such events are not uncommon on the Moon. The only difference was that this time, Fujii was lucky enough to get the events on camera twice.
Meanwhile, the Moon could be slammed by asteroid 2024 YR4 in 2032. The event is more than six years away, but scientists are intrigued to see what happens. Right now, there is a 3.8 to 4.3 per cent chance that it would crash into the Moon. It measures around 220 feet and can create another crater on the Moon. When it was discovered, scientists feared that it was on a trajectory towards Earth. But that changed weeks later. The James Webb Space Telescope is regularly observing the asteroid to make sure it doesn't pose a threat to our planet. But even if it doesn't collide with Earth, the debris generated by the lunar collision would pose a danger to satellites and astronauts on the International Space Station. It would also create a meteor shower that we will see for years to come.
This is why NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is considering blowing up the asteroid. NASA already practised it on the Dimorphos asteroid moonlet in 2022 as part of the DART mission.
Source: Wion