{"id":178204,"date":"2025-09-24T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T09:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/178204\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T09:00:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T09:00:07","slug":"scientists-eye-nuclear-options-as-asteroid-barrels-toward-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/178204\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists eye nuclear options as asteroid barrels toward moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

(NewsNation<\/a>) \u2014 Asteroid 2024 YR4<\/a> has a 4% chance of hitting the moon in December of 2032, according to The European Space Agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The asteroid made global headlines last year when it was reported to have a 3% probability of hitting Earth, but further observations led NASA<\/a> to conclude that the building-sized asteroid \u201cposes no significant impact risk to Earth in 2032 and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Never-before-seen video shows drone launching missile at orb <\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Nuclear disruption\u2019 an option, scientists say<\/p>\n

A new, yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper<\/a> proposes options to prevent asteroid 2024 YR4 from colliding with the moon.<\/p>\n

One option presented in the paper is a \u201ckinetic disruption mission\u201d to blow up the asteroid using \u201cnuclear explosive devices.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Northrop Grumman cargo ship reaches the International Space Station a day late after engine issue <\/a><\/p>\n

NASA previously tested asteroid deflection<\/p>\n

In 2022, NASA successfully crashed a spacecraft into a smaller asteroid at high speed, altering an asteroid\u2019s course for the first time in history.<\/p>\n

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test<\/a> was used to demonstrate NASA\u2019s planetary defense technology and capability to change an asteroid\u2019s motion \u201cthrough kinetic impact\u201d on one that posed no real threat.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s exact weight and do not have sufficient time to launch a \u201creconnaissance mission\u201d to study the asteroid before its impact further.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeflection missions were assessed and appear impractical,\u201d scientists wrote in the paper.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(NewsNation) \u2014 Asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 4% chance of hitting the moon in December of 2032, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[105865,22245,718,79,193],"class_list":["post-178204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-asteroid-deflection","tag-european-space-agency","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}