The Potential Danger to Satellites due to Ejecta from a 2032 Lunar Impact by Asteroid 2024 YR4
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866918124741197824 |
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| author | Wiegert, Paul Brown, Peter Lopes, Jack Connors, Martin |
| author_facet | Wiegert, Paul Brown, Peter Lopes, Jack Connors, Martin |
| contents | On 2032 December 22 the 60 m diameter asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 4% chance of impacting the Moon. Such an impact would release 6.5 MT TNT equivalent energy and produce a ~1 km diameter crater. We estimate that up to 10^8 kg of lunar material could be liberated in such an impact by exceeding lunar escape speed. Depending on the actual impact location on the Moon as much as 10% of this material may accrete to the Earth on timescales of a few days. The lunar ejecta-associated particle fluence at 0.1 - 10 mm sizes could produce upwards of years to of order a decade of equivalent background meteoroid impact exposure to satellites in near-Earth space late in 2032. Our results demonstrate that planetary defense considerations should be more broadly extended to cis-lunar space and not confined solely to near-Earth space. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_11217 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The Potential Danger to Satellites due to Ejecta from a 2032 Lunar Impact by Asteroid 2024 YR4 Wiegert, Paul Brown, Peter Lopes, Jack Connors, Martin Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Popular Physics On 2032 December 22 the 60 m diameter asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 4% chance of impacting the Moon. Such an impact would release 6.5 MT TNT equivalent energy and produce a ~1 km diameter crater. We estimate that up to 10^8 kg of lunar material could be liberated in such an impact by exceeding lunar escape speed. Depending on the actual impact location on the Moon as much as 10% of this material may accrete to the Earth on timescales of a few days. The lunar ejecta-associated particle fluence at 0.1 - 10 mm sizes could produce upwards of years to of order a decade of equivalent background meteoroid impact exposure to satellites in near-Earth space late in 2032. Our results demonstrate that planetary defense considerations should be more broadly extended to cis-lunar space and not confined solely to near-Earth space. |
| title | The Potential Danger to Satellites due to Ejecta from a 2032 Lunar Impact by Asteroid 2024 YR4 |
| topic | Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Popular Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.11217 |