The Hollywood movie Armageddon depicts a scenario in which humanity is saved by planting and detonating a nuclear bomb inside an asteroid headed for Earth, altering its trajectory. While such a mission once seemed confined to science fiction, it may soon become a reality.
According to the scientific community on Tuesday, an international research team, including NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), confirmed the existence of asteroid 2024 YR4 on December 27, 2024. This asteroid, estimated to have a diameter between 40 and 90 meters, has a 2.2% chance of colliding with Earth in 2032.
Experts predict that if 2024 YR4 were to strike Earth, the impact would be comparable to the Tunguska event of 1908. The explosion’s energy is estimated to be more than 500 times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. While not powerful enough to cause human extinction, it could completely destroy a city.
NASA and other international researchers state that the situation does not yet cause serious concern, but they emphasize the need for vigilance and proactive measures.
NASA and ESA plan to observe 2024 YR4 using the James Webb Space Telescope. Meanwhile, China is reportedly assembling a planetary defense team to develop countermeasures.
If the asteroid’s likelihood of impact increases, humanity may need to deploy one of the planetary defense strategies Pit has developed over the years.
In 2023, NASA unveiled its Planetary Defense Strategy and Action Plan, outlining its objectives for the next decade.
NASA intends to refine and expand upon experiments similar to the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) conducted in 2022 to prepare for asteroid collision threats. DART successfully altered the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos by deliberately crashing a spacecraft into it. NASA will likely adopt a similar approach if the need arises to change 2024 YR4’s trajectory.
In addition to physically impacting asteroids, NASA is researching and developing methods to alter their orbits using gravity tractors and ion beams (streams of charged particles).
Nuclear explosions are also being studied as a way to alter an asteroid’s trajectory. Some analyses suggest that this approach could be effective if time is too short to deploy other methods before the predicted impact.
At the time of the DART mission, Lindley Johnson, NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer, stated that while an asteroid impact could cause widespread devastation, it is the only natural disaster that humanity has the technological capability to prevent completely.