THE MOON could save Earth by blocking a devastating asteroid which is big enough to wipe out a city.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 is the size of a football pitch and has a 1-in-43 chance of a catastrophic collision with our planet, according to experts.
But new calculations show that there is a possibility of the moon shielding us from a direct impact from the giant rock - even though the odds are slightly slimmer.
The chance of Asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth on 22 December 2032 increased to 2.3% on 7 February.
A direct hit could be as if a 10-megaton nuclear bomb struck Earth.
But the potentially hazardous boulder has a 0.3% chance of colliding with our natural satellite - the moon.
The enormous asteroid has been rated as the highest risk ever recorded by the European Space Agency (ESA).
If this collision were to happen, we would be likely be able to see the effects with our own eyes, according to expert David Rankin.
He said: "There is the possibility this would eject some material back out that could hit the Earth, but I highly doubt it would cause any major threat."
Rankin, an operations engineer for the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey, also said a collision with the moon could release more energy than 340 Hiroshima bombs.
"It would likely be very visible from Earth," he added.
Gareth Collins, a planetary science professor at Imperial College London, said "we would be quite safe on Earth," and added that any material ejected from the initial impact would likely burn up in Earth's atmosphere on the way down.
This potentially life-saving news comes after experts were discussing deflection methods to stop the impact, including solar lasers, nuclear bombs and kinetic impactors.
The latter would see a spacecraft launch into the trajectory of the asteroid to knock it off its path.
On Friday, a chilling simulation showed what would happen if the city-killing asteroid did hit Earth.
Created by 3D specialist Alvaro Gracia Montoya at MetaBallStudios, the haunting footage shows the impact levelling an entire city.
The moon has been subject to countless asteroid hits in its lifetime, illustrated by its iconic crater-hit surface.
But if the moon were to take a hit from 2024 YR4, it would be left with a 1.2 miles long crater.
The moon’s largest crater on the other hand, the South Pole-Aitken basin, spans more than 1,500 miles.
Despite this possibility, the chance of the moon acting as a shield to the city-destroying asteroid remains incredibly low.
Rankin also added: "As of now, there is still a 97.9% chance of a miss with respect to Earth.
"When the odds doubled from 1% to 2%, this caused a lot of noise. It's not the same thing as going from 40% to 80% though.
“This asteroid is nothing to lose sleep over," he said.
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