In a scenario that feels pulled straight from the pages of science fiction, a team of scientists—including researchers from NASA—has proposed a bold plan to defend the moon from a potential asteroid strike. Their solution? Launching nuclear explosive devices at a city-sized space rock called 2024 YR4, which could collide with the lunar surface in 2032. While the idea conjures images of Hollywood blockbusters like "Armageddon," the threat and the science behind it are very real, and the proposal is stirring debate across the scientific community.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 was first spotted on December 27, 2024, and quickly caught the attention of astronomers worldwide. Measuring roughly 300 feet in length—about the size of a 15-story building—the asteroid initially sparked concern for Earth. According to Live Science, early calculations placed its odds of striking our planet at a worrisome 3.1 percent, enough to put it on NASA’s Sentry Impact Risk Table, which tracks objects with a non-zero probability of hitting Earth.
But as more observations poured in, especially from the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, the threat to Earth diminished. By late February 2025, the probability of an Earth impact had dropped to nearly zero. However, the focus quickly shifted to our celestial neighbor. The moon, it turns out, is not out of the woods. The odds of 2024 YR4 colliding with the lunar surface have steadily crept upward—from 1.7 percent in February to 3.8 percent in April, and then to 4.3 percent by May 2025, according to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies.
Why does this matter? After all, the moon isn’t home to bustling cities or fragile ecosystems. Yet a lunar impact of this magnitude would be far from trivial. As reported by Newsweek and USA Today, a strike from an asteroid the size of 2024 YR4 would kick up huge amounts of lunar "ejecta"—the dust and rock that make up the moon’s surface. This debris could be flung into space, substantially increasing the amount of micrometeoroid material in low-Earth orbit. That, in turn, could pose a serious risk to satellites, the International Space Station, and astronauts working in space.
The proposed solution is as dramatic as the threat itself. The research team, led in part by NASA’s Brent Barbee, concluded that conventional deflection methods—like the successful 2022 Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which nudged the asteroid Dimorphos off course by slamming a spacecraft into it—wouldn’t cut it this time. "Such missions were assessed and appear impractical," Barbee told Newsweek. The reasons? The size of the asteroid and the relatively short warning time before a potential impact make it a poor candidate for a gentle nudge.
Instead, the scientists are floating the idea of launching two nuclear explosive devices—each between five and eight times as powerful as the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—toward 2024 YR4. The plan, as described in the team’s recently published paper, is to detonate the devices in such a way as to break the asteroid apart well before it reaches the moon. "In our paper, we chose the size of the nuclear device and how far in advance of Earth/Moon encounter the asteroid is broken apart such that all the asteroid debris would be small and very widely scattered," Barbee explained to Newsweek.
There’s a certain urgency to the proposal, but also a fair bit of caution. The researchers emphasize that the mission would only proceed if updated observations confirmed that the threat to the moon remained significant. The James Webb Space Telescope is expected to spot 2024 YR4 again in early 2026, which could help refine the impact probability—potentially dropping it to zero. "Given that—and the current low impact probability of 4.3 percent—2024 YR4 provided our team the opportunity to exercise the necessary mission design capabilities that could be needed in the event a significant threat to Earth is identified in the future," Barbee told Newsweek.
The timeline for action is tight. According to USA Today, if the nuclear option were to move forward, the mission would need to launch sometime between 2029 and late 2031. That’s because the asteroid is expected to make its closest approach to the moon on December 22, 2032, and any intervention would need to occur well before then to be effective.
Of course, not everyone is eager to see nuclear devices hurled into space, even for planetary defense. Scientists stress that more research is needed before committing to such a drastic step. As Live Science reports, the uncertainty surrounding the asteroid’s precise path makes a deflection mission risky—if not downright dangerous. There’s always the slim but real chance that a poorly executed attempt could inadvertently redirect the asteroid toward Earth, a scenario everyone wants to avoid.
Meanwhile, the DART mission continues to serve as a touchstone for what’s possible. In September 2022, NASA’s spacecraft crashed into Dimorphos at roughly 14,000 mph, successfully altering its trajectory. The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft, launched in October 2024, is now on its way to study the aftermath up close. When Hera arrives at the Didymos binary system in October 2026, it will help scientists determine just how effective the DART test really was. As USA Today notes, the hope is that the lessons learned will better prepare humanity for the next big threat—whether it’s aimed at Earth or the moon.
For now, the world waits and watches. The odds of a catastrophic lunar impact remain low, but the stakes are high enough to warrant careful planning. As the data improves and the threat is better understood, the scientific community will have to weigh the risks and rewards of nuclear intervention versus other, less explosive options. One thing is clear: the challenge of defending our planet—and its only natural satellite—from cosmic hazards is as real as it gets, and the clock is ticking.
With eyes trained on the heavens and contingency plans in the works, scientists are taking no chances. Whether or not we ever see a nuclear device launched in defense of the moon, the current debate is sharpening humanity’s readiness for the day when a much bigger threat might come knocking.
