Asteroid Will Hit A Month?

Asteroid 2005 YU55 will pass close to Earth on Wednesday morning (11/09/2011) at around 5:28 pm. The first large asteroids that pass near Earth in the last 35 years is certainly not going to hit the Earth. But is it possible that an asteroid will hit the Moon?

2005 YU55 will pass at a distance of 325,000 miles from Earth. Distance is entered lunar orbit. Don Yeomans, director of program space near Earth object observations at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's suppose that if the asteroid hit the Moon, the impact will be quite significant.

"Asteroid will not shake the Moon at all, but it will create at least as wide impact crater 4 km. This is significant, but small compared to other Moon craters," Yeomans said as quoted by Space.com, Friday (11/04/2011).

For comparison, the largest crater current month, the South-Pole-Aitken Basin, has a diameter of 2,500 km, hundreds of times larger than that may occur due 2005 YU55.

Yeomans said the 2005 YU55 across Earth once every 100,000 years. Because the Moon is smaller, the event may only occur once in several hundred thousand years.

If the 2005 YU55 mashing Month, a number the dust of Earth satellites will be scattered, moving quickly enough to the top surface of the Moon to a distance of 384,000 km to the Earth. It is said Yeomans, some are scattered into space dust may burn in the Earth's atmosphere. However, there is also dust that got away up to the surface of the Earth.

According to Yeomans, a celestial body can only destroy the Moon by the collision when the size is also close to the Moon. "There are no asteroids that could do that.'s Largest asteroid that passed Earth at this time only measures 8 k."

Asteroid 2005 YU55 is only 400 meters diameter thus would not be able to destroy the Moon. According to Yeomans, 2005 YU55 and the moon was not even going to meet and collide.

The reason is, when the asteroid 2005 YU55 passed, the Moon was in the other side of the Earth's rotation is complete. Both are separated by 240,000 km. So basically, no need to worry about 2005 YU55 will destroy our beloved Moon.