NASA should hit 'doomsday asteroid' with nuclear bombs in space, study suggests

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is planning to hit the “doomsday asteroid” with a nuclear bomb and destroy it in space.

The doomsday rock, first discovered in December 2024, designated 2024 YR4 is expected to strike the moon in December 2032. The study predicts that the space rock-apocalypse could potentially generate enough power to destroy an entire city.

A non-peer-reviewed paper that appeared on pre-print server arXiv detailed the unconventional plan to prevent the space rock’s lunar crash.

The YR4 estimates place the object at roughly 60–90 m in diameter.

NASA’s Center for Near Earth Objects has downgraded the chances of YR4 hitting the Earth to 0.00081 percent whereas at the same time it has increased the chances of the asteroid hitting the moon to 4 per cent.

The arXiv study claims that a nuclear robust disruption mission could be launched within the next four years.

The team has proposed to send two 100-kiloton nuclear devices capable of auto-piloting themselves to YR4.

The authors, including experts from NASA, have proposed that devices capable of detonating themselves, when in contact with YR4, with a force of five to eight times more powerful than the bomb dropped by U.S. on Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be sent on nuclear robust disruption mission.