Scientists Consider Nuking Asteroid That May Be Heading to the Moon

NEED TO KNOW

Asteroid 2024 YR4, an asteroid discovered in 2024, has a 4% chance of hitting the moon in 2032

Should the asteroid collide with the moon, it could create debris that would threaten astronauts and spacecrafts

A group of scientists recently published a paper that considers options for dealing with the asteroid — one of which includes a nuclear “disruption”

An asteroid may hit the moon in 2032 — and some scientists are wondering if Earth should nuke it.

Calculations conducted in May revealed that the asteroid, named 2024 YR4 , has a 4% chance of hitting the moon in 2032, according to a paper recently submitted by over a dozen scientists to arXiv, an open access archive for non-peer reviewed studies.

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