Overview
- Researchers ran more than 10,000 trajectory and impact models that map a roughly 3,000-kilometer probable impact corridor just north of Tycho crater.
- If a collision occurs on December 22, 2032, the predicted impact time is 10:19 a.m. EST (15:19 UTC), making East Asia, Oceania, Hawaii and western North America favorable for viewing.
- The event is forecast to produce a starlike flash about magnitude −2.5 to −3 lasting several minutes with an infrared afterglow, though naked-eye visibility is unlikely because about 70 percent of the Moon will be sunlit.
- A strike by the roughly 60-meter object could excavate a crater about one kilometer wide and loft debris that may trigger intense meteor storms on Earth days to months later.
- The analysis is posted on arXiv and has not been peer-reviewed, Earth is not at risk from the asteroid itself, and updated observations—especially during a 2028 close approach—are expected to refine the probability and location.