Scientists Debate Blowing Up Asteroid 2024 YR4 With Nuclear Explosives

In 2022, NASA made history when it deliberately crashed a spacecraft into a small asteroid, successfully shifting its trajectory. The mission, called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), was a proof-of-concept that humanity could defend itself against a rogue space rock.

Now, scientists are facing a much bigger challenge — a newly identified near-Earth asteroid, 2024 YR4, which has raised alarm in the planetary defence community. According to NASA’s Centre for Near Earth Objects, the asteroid carries just a 0.00081 per cent chance of hitting Earth, but a significantly higher 4 per cent chance of colliding with the Moon in December 2032.

While these odds seem slim, researchers warn that even a lunar impact could be catastrophic for astronauts and satellites in space, with debris potentially creating a deadly hazard.

Why Blowing It Up Might Be the Only Option

A yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study by NASA-affiliated scientists suggests that the most effective solution isn’t just deflecting Asteroid 2024 YR4 — but blowing it up entirely.

The asteroid measures nearly 300 feet across, with a mass estimated between 72.7 million and 2 billion pounds. That massive uncertainty makes designing a DART-like mission nearly impossible. Without precise mass data, even the most advanced kinetic impactor may fail to alter its course meaningfully.

Instead, the research team proposes a “kinetic robust disruption mission” — or, more dramatically, a nuclear detonation. The plan involves launching two 100-kiloton nuclear devices capable of autonomously navigating to the asteroid. Each warhead would be up to eight times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A third device would serve as a backup.

The reasoning is simple: shattering 2024 YR4 into smaller pieces could neutralise the threat far more effectively than trying to nudge it off course.

Asteroid 2024 YR4

The Clock Is Ticking

Timing is critical. A reconnaissance mission to determine the asteroid’s mass could launch no earlier than 2028, leaving only three years before its potential lunar collision. By contrast, a nuclear disruption mission could be prepared within five to seven years, with launch windows between 2029 and 2031.

That gives NASA — and its political overseers — a narrow but viable window to act.

Politics and Budgets May Decide Humanity’s Fate

Whether such a dramatic mission will ever happen, however, is far from certain. NASA is already facing deep budget constraints, with dozens of missions threatened by the Trump administration’s controversial 2026 budget proposal. Critics question whether it makes sense to commit billions of dollars to destroy an asteroid that is 379 million miles away and overwhelmingly unlikely to hit Earth.

Still, planetary defence experts caution that ignoring even low-probability threats could leave humanity dangerously unprepared for the future. After all, history shows that asteroid impacts have altered the course of life on Earth before — and will again, someday.