An asteroid may be heading for the moon. Should we nuke it first?

If an asteroid is on a collision course with the moon, should it be deflected or blown up? A paper from NASA scientists and other researchers explores the options.

If an asteroid is on a collision course with the moon, what should humanity do? Try to nudge the space rock out of the way before it strikes? Obliterate it with a nuclear explosion?

Those are the questions explored in a recent paper from more than a dozen researchers, including several NASA scientists. And they're not purely hypothetical: An asteroid known as 2024 YR4 is estimated to have a 4% chance of hitting the moon in 2032.

Such a cosmic collision could produce debris “up to 1,000 times above background levels over just a few days, possibly threatening astronauts and spacecraft” in low-Earth orbit, the researchers wrote in the paper, which was uploaded to the preprint website arXiv on Sept. 15 but has yet to be peer-reviewed.

To avoid creating that potentially dangerous debris field, one option is to nuke the asteroid, according to the paper — or trigger what the scientists call a “robust disruption” — before it reaches the moon.

Cue the "Armageddon" movie references.