Scientists are contemplating the opportunity of launching a nuclear weapon at an asteroid that might doubtlessly hit the moon in 2032 — however they are saying extra analysis is required earlier than taking this ahead as an choice.
The investigation considerations asteroid 2024 YR4, which reached notoriety shortly after its discovery in December 2024 when scientists (working with restricted observations) revealed it had a comparatively excessive probability of impacting Earth in 2032, peaking at 3.1%.
That’s good news for our planet, but the updated tracking also shows the asteroid has a fairly good chance of crashing into the moon — about 4%. A crash of an object that size, and relatively close to Earth, would almost certainly have some effect on us.
Threats to astronauts, spacecraft
If an asteroid the size of 2024 YR4 crashed into the moon, it would produce lunar “ejecta,” kicking up the regolith — the top layer of dust and small rocks on the surface — which would substantially increase micrometeoroid debris in low Earth orbit.
The flux could be up to 1,000 times “above background levels … possibly threatening astronauts and spacecraft” as little space rocks can puncture spacecraft, spacesuits and similar, the researchers wrote in the new study, which was posted Sept. 15 on the preprint server Arxiv and has not but been peer-reviewed.
While that is a menace for satellites and the International Space Station (if it doesn’t deorbit in 2031 as deliberate), any try and divert the asteroid may create a fair larger danger, the authors warned. There stays nice uncertainty concerning the asteroid’s actual mass, which implies any try and nudge it off beam would even be removed from sure. An ill-planned deflection mission may unintentionally push the asteroid towards Earth, the researchers wrote.
Scientists do have diverting expertise to attract upon: NASA’s DART mission deflected an asteroid moonlet‘s path in 2022. DART despatched a kinetic impactor into the moonlet, referred to as Dimorphos, which barely altered the little house rock’s path round its father or mother asteroid, Didymos. But the researchers behind the brand new examine concluded that any try at deflecting 2024 YR4 would “appear impractical” due to constraints akin to not figuring out the article’s mass — and having a really restricted window to review the article additional earlier than its shut flyby in 2032.
Just nuke it
The researchers as an alternative think about the thought of breaking apart the asteroid. A DART-style spacecraft could possibly be despatched to not transfer the asteroid however to punch it into items, they counsel. This is an untested idea, however NASA has a number of years to consider it given the launch window for such a mission is between April 2030 and April 2032.
Failing that, NASA may ship a nuclear mission, detonating a rocket-propelled nuke on or close to the asteroid earlier than its method. This technique is also untested but theoretically possible. There would be slightly less time to get that mission ready, but that could launch between late 2029 and late 2031, according to the researchers.
The paper emphasizes that there’s still a 96% chance that the asteroid breezes by the moon with no issues, but the researchers say this situation as an opportunity to further research asteroid-smashing spacecraft.
They call on other researchers to provide estimated build times for spacecraft, and to create more designs — just in case a more serious threat comes by our planetary neighborhood.