NASA scientists propose nuking asteroid with chance of hitting the moon -
In a plan ripped straight from the script of the 1998 movie " Armageddon," scientists have suggested a simple, if violent, method of dealing with a troublesome asteroid.
Just nuke it.
But in this case, it's not Earth that is the celestial body under threat. And the plan definitely would not require sending Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck on a harrowing journey to the space rock itself.
Instead, a team of researchers that includes NASA scientists have put forth the bold idea of launching nuclear bombs at an asteroid with a slight chance of hitting the moon in 2032.
The asteroid in question might sound familiar to you. Dubbed 2024 YR4, the space rock big enough to level a city grabbed headlines earlier in 2025 when it initially posed a historically high chance of crashing into Earth.
Here's a refresher on 2024 YR4, and what to know about the new nuclear option.
Because it's big enough to be deemed a "city killer," asteroid 2024 YR4 became a source of alarm due to the uncommonly high risk it had of colliding with Earth on Dec. 22, 2032.
The space rock was reported Dec. 27, 2024, to the Minor Planet Center, the official authority for observing and reporting new asteroids, comets and other small bodies in the solar system. The object eventually caught the attention of NASA and other astronomers when it rose on the U.S. Space Agency's Sentry Impact Risk Table, which tracks any known asteroids with a non-zero probability of hitting Earth.
For a time, it was the only object among more than 37,000 known large space rocks with any chance of hitting Earth anytime soon – with its probability of impact even rising to a record level of 3.1%.
That began to change in late February as more precise observations allowed scientists to effectively winnow down the asteroid's odds of impact to a number so low, it might as well be zero.
How big is asteroid 2024 YR4?Based observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists know the asteroid's approximate length could reach nearly 300 feet, or about the size of a 10-story building.
Earth safe from YR4 asteroid, but impact odds for moon keep rising...
For that reason, the researchers put forth a number of plans for scientists to prevent a collision – the most extreme of which is to launch a bunch of nukes at the asteroid.
Scientists may know the asteroid's approximiate size, but they don't have accurate approximations of the asteroid's weight. Considering that, the researchers argue the world's space agencies wouldn't be able to pull off a reconnaissance mission to gather data, and then manufacture a spacecraft in time with the specifications needed to successfully crash into and knock the asteroid off its current trajectory.
Such a plan also comes with the added risk of inadvertently pushing the asteroid onto a collision course with Earth, the researchers claim.
But firing an arsenal of nuclear weapons at the asteroid doesn't require as much subtlety or nuance.
That's why, the researchers argued, detonating the space rock using “nuclear explosive devices” should be a sufficient method for dealing with the slight threat.
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