(NewsNation) — Asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 4% chance of hitting the moon in December of 2032, according to The European Space Agency.

Such a collision could have devastating consequences for satellites and astronauts in space, prompting a group of scientists to develop plans to prevent it from happening.

The asteroid made global headlines last year when it was reported to have a 3% probability of hitting Earth, but further observations led NASA to conclude that the building-sized asteroid “poses no significant impact risk to Earth in 2032 and beyond.”

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‘Nuclear disruption’ an option, scientists say

A new, yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper proposes options to prevent asteroid 2024 YR4 from colliding with the moon.

One option presented in the paper is a “kinetic disruption mission” to blow up the asteroid using “nuclear explosive devices.”

The mission would include sending two 100-kiloton nuclear devices to the asteroid, with each being five to eight times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945, according to Futurism.

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NASA previously tested asteroid deflection

In 2022, NASA successfully crashed a spacecraft into a smaller asteroid at high speed, altering an asteroid’s course for the first time in history.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test was used to demonstrate NASA’s planetary defense technology and capability to change an asteroid’s motion “through kinetic impact” on one that posed no real threat.

Researchers in the paper suggest this method would not effectively prevent asteroid 2024 YR4 from impacting the moon, as astronomers remain uncertain about the asteroid’s exact weight and do not have sufficient time to launch a “reconnaissance mission” to study the asteroid before its impact further.

“Deflection missions were assessed and appear impractical,” scientists wrote in the paper.

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