Asteroids pose real threats to Earth, with scientists tracking near-Earth objects through advanced detection systems like the Dark Energy Camera and NEO Surveyor telescope. The DART mission successfully demonstrated that humanity can deflect asteroids by crashing a spacecraft into them, changing their trajectory. However, detection remains challenging because many asteroids, especially those orbiting close to the sun, hide in the sun's glare and remain invisible to Earth-based telescopes. Scientists estimate that only about 40% of city-killer asteroids (500 ft wide) have been detected, meaning most potential threats remain undiscovered.
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City-Killer Asteroid Returns in 2028 — Impact Risk Growing
Added:In February 2025, scientists detected an asteroid heading our way. If it hit, it would create a crater the size of Manhattan and unleash a shock wave strong enough to flatten everything within 30 mi. Uh-oh. I'm out of here.
Well, luckily for now, we're in the clear. But the threat is coming back in 2028, and this time everything might change. You see, in 2025, NASA announced that an asteroid called 2024 YR4 had a 3.1% chance of hitting Earth in 2032.
Now, in asteroid terms, that's high enough to sound the alarm. The asteroid itself is not the end of the dinosaurs level, but it's big enough to level a city. The rock is about 130 to 300 ft wide. That's roughly the size of a large jet. Now, if something that size slammed into a populated area, it wouldn't end the world, but it would result in a very, very bad day. And still, no one panicked, and scientists weren't scrambling for bunkers. Because when we first spot an asteroid, we have to work with limited information. It's like seeing a plane high up in the sky and trying to guess exactly which gate it'll park at. That's why astronomers rush to gather more data. The asteroid itself seemed pretty ordinary. It was rocky, not some rare metal thing. It was first spotted in late 2024 by an observatory in Chile during a regular sky scan routine.
There's this group called the International Asteroid Warning Network.
Their job is to keep an eye on space rocks that might try to ruin your day.
And back on January 29th, 2025, they announced that the chances of that particular asteroid hitting Earth had gone over 1%. Now 1% might not sound like much, but that's enough to make scientists start worrying. The impact risk for 2024 YR4 reached its highest point on February 18th, 2025. That's when scientists calculated a 3.1% chance it could hit Earth.
But by February 23rd, after more observations came in, that possibility was essentially ruled out completely.
The asteroid's Torino scale rating, which is used to categorize the impact risk of near-Earth objects like asteroids and comets within the next 100 years, was lowered to zero. It means it's no longer considered a threat to Earth. Well, for now, but scientists still keep tracking it, and based on additional data, there is now a 4% chance it could hit the moon instead. If that were to happen, it would be on December 22nd, 2032.
Right now, the asteroid is expected to pass about 5,600 mi from the moon's surface. However, there is a very large uncertainty range about plus or minus 46,000 mi. So, it could easily miss the moon by a very large distance.
The last time we had something this dangerous was back in 2004 with an asteroid called 99942 Apous. Back then, it had a 2.7 chance of hitting Earth in 2029.
People were sweating, but after better observations, scientists ruled out the impact. This time, we actually passed that old record.
2024 YR4 is currently heading out toward Jupiter's neighborhood and won't swing back close to us until 2028.
And that's when everything might change.
If the risk jumps above 10%, the IWWN will send out a formal warning to the United Nations. They'll tell countries in possible impact zones to maybe start preparing. Because if we talk about the damage, admittedly, this asteroid is not the 6 mile wide monster that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago after hitting Earth. This here asteroid is in the city killer category. It sounds dramatic because it is, but it's not some global extinction stuff. The real problem isn't just its size. It's its speed. If the asteroid hits, it could be moving nearly 40,000 mph. That's like flying from New York to LA in under 5 minutes. But still, the most likely scenario would be the asteroid exploding in the air before even hitting the ground. That's called an air burst.
But if the asteroid is on the bigger end of the size estimates, it could actually reach the surface of our planet, slam into the ground, and make a crater. So that possibility still on the table. As for where it could hit, the possible impact zone covers a huge area. Eastern Pacific, Northern South America, the Atlantic, Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and South Asia. Um, raise your hand if we left you out.
Keep in mind though that it's way too early to make life decisions based on that. So no packing up and moving yet.
Besides, we're not sitting here helpless. In 2022, NASA pulled off the DART mission where they literally smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid to nudge it off course. And it worked. DART stands for double asteroid redirection test. It was built for NASA's planetary defense office. They wanted to know if we could push an asteroid just enough for it to miss our planet. So, they launched a spacecraft in November 2022 and it traveled through space for about 10 months. The plan from day one was to crash it. The target was a small asteroid moon called Dorphus, which is about 530 ft across, the size of a large stadium. Dimorphice orbits a bigger asteroid called Daimos. The two of them just circle each other out there in space. What's important is that neither of them was threatening Earth. So, this was a safe test.
Now, Dart was basically a heavy spacecraft with a camera and a smart guidance system. The strategy was to hit Dimorphice at about 14,000 mph and let the force of that impact slightly change its orbit. In the final stretch, the spacecraft guided itself. It had to figure out which rock was which, lock onto the smaller one, and adjust its path without anyone steering it in real time. When it hit, the onboard camera sent back close-up images right up until the moment of impact. Then the signal stopped because the spacecraft had done its job and smashed into the asteroid.
There was also a small Italian cube sack that separated earlier and stayed back to photograph the collision and the resulting debris cloud. Those images showed a huge plume of rock and dust blasting out into space. Well, after that, astronomers around the world started measuring the orbit of Dimorphice very carefully. Before the collision, it took 11 hours and 55 minutes to circle the Daimos. After the impact, it took 11 hours and 23 minutes.
That's an impressive 32minute difference. The interesting part was that the spacecraft alone wasn't responsible for all of that shift. When dart struck the surface, it threw tons of rocky material outward. All that rock and dust blasting off gave the asteroid an extra push, stronger than the spacecraft alone could have done.
Scientists later realized that Dorphos wasn't a solid chunk of rock. It was more like a loose pile of rubble held together by gravity. That probably helped produce more debris and a bigger push. So, if we ever face a denser, more solid asteroid, the same technique might not have the same exact effect. That's why scientists are also looking at other ideas like using lasers to heat up part of the asteroid so bits of rock fly off and slowly push it in the opposite direction, like giving it a tiny built-in rocket. Or they could place a spacecraft close to the asteroid and use its gravity to slowly pull it off course like a small tugboat guiding a huge ship. Or if things got really serious, use a nuclear blast as a last resort shove.
Despite the success of the Dart mission, NASA says we do not have a ready, reliable system that could stop a city killing asteroid if one suddenly shows up on a collision course with Earth.
The danger isn't the giant dinosaur level asteroids. Those are huge and easy to track. Neither is it tiny rocks that burn up in the atmosphere all the time.
It's the middlesized ones around 500 ft wide. Scientists estimate there are about 25,000 near-earth objects in that size range moving near Earth's orbit. So far, we've only found about 40% of them.
That means most of them are still out there and we don't know exactly where they are. The problem is they're dark.
Most don't reflect much sunlight, so even powerful telescopes can miss them.
To help fix that, NASA plans to launch a new space telescope called the Near Earth Object Surveyor. Instead of looking for sunlight bouncing off asteroids, it'll look for heat.
Even a dark asteroid absorbs sunlight and gives off heat, and that's easier to see in infrared.
Astronomers just spotted an asteroid roughly the size of 8 football fields.
It spins so fast that it completes a full rotation in just under 2 minutes, which makes it the fastest asteroid ever found in its size class. If this bad boy hits Earth, the consequences will be well, let's just say everyone will notice. You think? Scientists caught MN45 using early data from an observatory on a mountaintop in Chile with a 3,200 megapixel camera. Ooh. It will be scanning huge areas again and again for 10 years to catch what moves, what flashes, and what wasn't there yesterday. The Super Cam takes an image every 40 seconds. And that's how it noticed MN45.
The same equipment recently caught around 2,000 other asteroids, but our hero definitely stands out. Now, an asteroid spinning this fast probably didn't start life as a calm, normal space rock. Scientists think a past collision could have smacked it hard enough to spin it up like a toy top. And if that impact was violent enough, MN45 might not even be the original asteroid, but a fragment that broke off from a much larger parent object. Basically, a piece of a bigger monster that got shattered long ago. Spinning fast in space isn't just a flax. It's dangerous.
Because rotation creates stress, and stress tries to rip an asteroid apart.
If a space rock doesn't have enough internal strength, it doesn't stay one object. It fragments into smaller pieces, like a cookie that cracks when you twist it too hard. That's why most asteroids never spin this fast. Most of them aren't solid boulders. They're rubble piles. Basically, space gravel held together by weak gravity, like a floating clump of broken rocks.
Astronomers have a kind of speed limit for asteroids. In the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, a typical rubble pile asteroid needs to rotate more slowly than about 2.2 2 hours per full spin to stay intact. Anything faster than that starts entering the danger zone. So, if an asteroid spins faster than this limit and it's still big, that's a massive clue. It must have unusually strong material inside, like solid rock or something even denser.
Because if it were weak and crumbly like most asteroids, it wouldn't be spinning.
It would already be a cloud of debris.
The good news is that this hard rock asteroid isn't coming for Earth. It's at a safe distance from us up in the asteroid belt. But its existence screams something terrifying. If something this big and this extreme stayed unnoticed until now, what else could be hiding out there? Perhaps the real threat isn't one record-breaking spinner, but a blind spot. Some simulations show that there could be a whole swarm of hidden city killer asteroids hanging around Venus like cosmic pickpockets. As you can guess from the name, these asteroids are large enough to destroy an entire city.
The reason they're so hard to catch is that they hide in sunlight. From Earth, the area close to the sun looks bright and washed out, which makes it easy for objects near Venus's orbit to blend into the glare. It's like trying to spot a black cat in a dark room when someone shines a flashlight straight into your eyes. And this is where it gets personal because humans love pretending we control space. But these Venus hiding asteroids don't care. Their orbits can shift slowly over time because of gravity nudges and long-term motion. And that means one of them could eventually get pushed onto an Earth crossing path.
Not today, not tomorrow, but someday.
And in asteroid terms, someday always arrives faster than people expect.
Now, let's talk about a completely different kind of dangerous asteroid.
Beenu. Now, Binu isn't a solid rock freak like MN45.
BU is a rubble pile, a loose, clumpy near-Earth asteroid about 1,600 ft wide.
It's famous because NASA actually went there. The Osirus Rex mission grabbed samples and brought them back to Earth.
And what scientists found inside was straight up mindblowing. There were lifels like ribos and glucose, plus a weird gumlike organic material and even ancient stardust. Down on Earth, ribos helps build RNA. And deoxyibbos helps build DNA. DNA and RNA are basically life's instruction manuals. They store information the way a hard drive stores files. But before you get too excited, no, finding these sugars on Bayu doesn't mean it had life. But it does mean the building blocks needed to build biology weren't rare or special. They were everywhere, floating around in the early solar system. Scientists have already found ribos before in two meteorites that landed on Earth, so it's not totally unusual. All that is cool and totally benign, but Bennu has a scary side, too. It isn't likely to hit Earth, but researchers still model it because it has a very small chance of impact in the late 2100s, including around 2182.
And if BEu hit, it wouldn't wipe out dinosaurs again, but it could wreck climate patterns, blast huge regions, and trigger global level effects depending on where it struck. BEu is like the perfect reminder that space can carry both the ingredients of life and the power to erase it. And if you want more reminders like this, space is like a gallery of cool asteroids. Take series for example, which was first classified as a planet, then demoted to an asteroid, and then promoted to a dwarf planet. Again, hey, talk about an identity crisis. One thing is for sure, it's basically the boss of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
No matter what label you slap on it, seriesiri is a cold ball of rock and ice about 600 m wide. Living there would feel like surviving on hard mode. Series has no substantial atmosphere, so you need a space suit just to breathe and to avoid freezing. Daytime temperatures range from about - 136 to -28° F. And at night, it drops to around - 225.
But you'd also feel ridiculously light because series gravity is only about 3% of Earth's. A 150lb person would feel like 4 12 lbs there. Siri is like a failed planet, leftover rubble from the solar system forming. A protolanet that never fully grew up. NASA's Dawn spacecraft went to see it in 2015 and spotted bright white patches that look like headlights from some strange spaceships. The biggest one sat inside a massive crater. Scientists thought it might be exposed ice, but it turned out to be sodium carbonate, salty mineral leftovers from briney water that bubbled up and vanished into space. Even crazier, that salty water may still come from a reservoir about 25 m below the surface. And the activity could still be happening today. Life seems unlikely there, but with water involved, it might have existed in the past. Now, this guy, Tutus, another cool asteroid, has a weird doublelobe dumbbell shape. Instead of smooth spinning, it does this chaotic tumbling motion like someone tossed a wrench into space and it never stopped flipping over. Scientists think part of the reason for this weird movement is that Tuditus might be two bodies barely touching. That makes it unstable right away. Then gravity shows up and makes it worse. As Tuditus travels through the solar system, the gravitational pull of Earth and even Jupiter can tug on it, messing with its rotation like invisible hands turning it at random. That's what makes it so unpredictable. It's not just spinning, but constantly getting nudged into new motion patterns. The path it takes through space brings it close to Earth, which sounds terrifying, but the even scarier part is the word chaotic.
Scientists determine its orbit for the next few centuries, and it won't collide with Earth in the next six centuries, but we don't know what can happen after that. So, as you can see, we don't need to be afraid of every asteroid scientists have spotted, but we might have a good reason to fear the ones they haven't seen yet.
So, we just spotted an asteroid so massive it could wipe out an entire continent if it ever hit Earth. And it's moving insanely fast, almost record speed. But what makes it really scary is how it's basically playing hide and seek with us. It can slip right into the sun's glare and vanish completely. And yeah, it just did it again. It disappeared. So, when we finally spot it again, will we have enough time to prepare or could it already be too late for humanity?
Do I have your attention now? Ah, thanks. So, meet 2025 SC79.
That's a mouthful, so I'll just nickname it Scooby. This newly found asteroid is a sneaky one, the kind that loves hiding in the sun's glare. Think of it as trying to spot a firefly next to a stadium light. The brightness hits your eyes and outshines anything faint nearby. So yeah, you won't see that firefly.
Now, asteroids hide in the same frustrating way. When they end up close to the sun from our point of view on Earth, the glare overwhelms our telescopes, and the asteroid's dim reflected light gets lost in it. That's why some asteroids can cruise along in the sun's direction and stay basically invisible to us. And scientists say the most dangerous asteroids, the ones that could wipe out a whole city, are the hardest to detect. That's why astronomers need to somehow dodge the sun's glare. One way they do it is by observing the sky during the short window of twilight. I mean, right before sunrise or just after sunset. And that timing is a big deal because it's the only way to catch some risky asteroid before it sneaks up on Earth. Scientists say that if one of these so-called twilight asteroids ever gets close to Earth, it could be a serious impact threat.
And it was during one of these twilight observing sessions that scientists finally spotted this huge asteroid. It was September 27th, 2025. Scott Shepard, an astronomer at a Washington-based institute, was scanning the sky, hunting for anything unusual in our solar system. And he had an incredible tool in his hands, the dark energy camera, ooh, or DECAM, one of the most powerful sky survey cameras on Earth, built to spot faint objects across huge areas of the universe.
At one point, he spotted a faint dot moving across the image. So, he quickly aimed the high-tech camera at it, and things got more interesting. Its movement matched what astronomers expect from asteroids that orbit very close to the sun. Then, follow-up observations with the Gemini and Mellan telescopes confirm the discovery.
Yes, this really was an asteroid. And there are two particularly curious things about it.
First, it's fast. Like really fast. In fact, it is the second fastest known asteroid orbit in the solar system. It loops around the sun once every 128 days. For comparison, Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, takes 88 days to go around once.
Second, its orbit is super rare. This is only the second known object that stays completely inside Venus's orbit. That also puts it in one of the rarest asteroid groups out there, the Atarus.
These are asteroids whose orbits sit entirely inside Earth's orbit.
Astronomers have found only a few of them so far, and Scooby is the 39th one in the list. The team of scientists also figured out that this asteroid is pretty big, measuring about 2,300 ft across.
That's roughly the size of Murda 118, the second tallest building on Earth.
If an asteroid this size ever slammed into Earth, it wouldn't just be bad, it would be catastrophic. We're talking about damage on a continental scale. It would blast a huge crater into the ground, then throw out a shock wave powerful enough to wipe out forests and wreck cities. Seismic waves would ripple through the crust, triggering widespread earthquakes around magnitude 7.4, and people could still feel them about 300 m away from the strike. And that's not all. A brutal air pressure blast would race outward, shattering windows more than 1,000 m away. Then comes the aftermath.
Dust and debris from the impact could shoot up into the atmosphere, block some sunlight, and mess with our climate. I know you might feel scared right now, but don't worry about it.
Thankfully, Scooby isn't going to do anything like that because it's not on a collision course with Earth right now.
The math shows it won't be making any close passes by our planet, at least not anytime soon.
Still, there's a lot more to learn about this asteroid, but any further studies will have to wait. For now, it has disappeared behind the sun and is out of sight. Once it reappears, astronomers will take a closer look and try to learn more about what it's made of. That part really matters because this asteroid is somehow holding up while orbiting so close to the sun's brutal heat.
You see, this asteroid gets very near to the sun. At its closest point, this asteroid is blasted with almost six times Earth's sunlight. At that distance, its surface could heat up to about 440° F. What scientists don't know yet is how a rock this big can get baked over and over again without falling apart. And there are two more things astronomers want to check once it comes back into view. How fast it spins and how bright it looks. Now, by bright, I mean how much sunlight it reflects.
Because asteroids don't make their own sunlight. They're just big rocky chunks that shine by reflecting sunlight back at us. Anyway, those clues can tell scientists what Scooby is made of. One possibility is that this asteroid is loaded with dense metal, and that could explain how it survives the sun's brutal heat. And if that turns out to be true, this asteroid could be a relic from when the solar system was just forming.
Or maybe it slowly moved closer to the sun because the gravity of Venus and Mercury gently pulled on it again and again over millions of years.
Now, even though SE79 isn't a real danger to us, and there's still a lot we don't know about it, just finding it is already a big deal. It's a reminder that big asteroids can hide from us. So, even in our own cosmic backyard, there are still blind spots where large objects can stay hidden until the right moment of twilight gives them away. And as our detection tech gets better, we keep finding more and more asteroids. By now, scientists have spotted over a million in the solar system. They come in all sizes from monsters like Vesta that measure about 329 m wide all the way down to rocks that are smaller than a house.
Now, out of all the asteroids we know, about 40,000 are what we call near Earth asteroids or NAS. That just means their orbits bring them close to our neighborhood. Technically, their closest point to the sun is less than 1.3 times the Earth's sun distance. That's close enough for planetary defense systems to keep a careful eye on them. And that's exactly why we can relax. I mean, nobody has to lose sleep imagining an asteroid slamming into our planet. Every time scientists discover a new asteroid that comes anywhere near Earth, they track it and run the numbers right away. And then they map out its path years, decades, or even centuries into the future. And they don't do it by guesswork. NASA's automated systems like Sentry constantly scan the asteroid catalog and calculate whether any of these objects has even a small chance of hitting Earth over the next 100 years. If something looks risky, it jumps to the top of the watch list and gets followed up fast. So, yeah, there are almost 2,000 near-Earth asteroids that technically have some chance of hitting us in the next hundred years. But don't panic. Most are small and harmless. Hey, like me. And their odds of impact are usually way under 1%.
See why I said we shouldn't stress too much? Cool. Now, sleep tight.
Asteroids, unseen but perilous, are traveling in the same orbit as Venus, and our telescopes just can't detect them. The threat is real. If one of these objects heads toward Earth, we're all doomed. Well, maybe in that notsodistant, relatively of course, stretch of space where Venus orbits, there may be hundreds of asteroids we've never detected. They could be circling the sun right at this moment, but they stay completely hidden from us. The problem is their position. Because they're closer to the sun than Earth is, we can only look for them by pointing our telescopes almost straight toward the sun. Any sunlight they reflect gets swallowed up by the sun's brightness.
So, they basically disappear in the glare. These objects aren't part of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. They're much closer moving through the inner solar system. They travel in what's called a onetoone resonance with Venus. It means they orbit the sun in almost the exact same period as the planet. This makes them Venian co-orbital asteroids, rocks that orbit the sun in the same area as Venus instead of having their own separate path. Now, researchers use computer modeling and long-term simulations to figure out how these hidden asteroids behave and whether they could ever threaten Earth. The results aren't reassuring. The orbits of these asteroids aren't stable. Their paths shift over time, and about every 12,000 years, their whole orbital setup can change. An asteroid that stays close to Venus for thousands of years can eventually drift away from it and come much closer to Earth's orbit. Now, Jupiter has its own group of co-orbital asteroids called Trojans, but those are much more stable and the planet is so far from us that even unstable ones wouldn't be a problem. The Venus co-orbitals are different. They're close and their orbits can change enough that some of them may eventually cross Earth's path. So even though these asteroids are invisible to us right now, the models suggest that some of them could one day get close enough to pose a real risk to our planet, even if that risk is thousands of years away. Now, even worse, scientists think that the small number of Venus co-orbital asteroids we've already discovered is only a tiny sample of what's actually out there. They suspect that most of this population is still completely unseen. Some of these hidden objects may be almost a,000 ft wide. Such an asteroid is large enough to create a crater about 2 to 3 m across if it ever hits Earth. Oh boy. An impact of that size would release energy equal to hundreds of megat tons, causing massive destruction if it happened in a densely populated region. An asteroid would slam into the planet with enormous force, turning solid rock into vapor.
Everything and everyone close enough to see the crash wouldn't live long. The ground around the impact crater would be covered with hot ash, grit, and rubble.
Grass, trees, and shrubbery around the crash site would burst into flames. But that's not the worst thing. The impact would trigger a series of natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes, depending on the region.
The sky would get almost completely black because of all that ash in the air. It would block the sunlight.
Rainwater would get highly acidic. Fires would keep raging. They would produce enough toxins harming the ozone layer.
Earth's shield against the sun's radiation and heat would weaken. Even though humans would probably survive, the quality of life would plummet, and no one knows how long it last. So far, the Venus co-orbital asteroids we have found all share one thing. They follow stretched out orbits. Their eccentricity is higher than 0.38.
Eccentricity is just a measure of how round an orbit is. A value of zero means a perfect circle. Earth's orbit is 0.017, which is almost a circle. The higher the number, the more oval the orbit becomes.
And since these known asteroids follow long stretched path, they can drift far from Venus and swing closer to Earth.
When that happens, we can sometimes spot them during twilight, when the sun is below the horizon, but still bright enough to light up small nearby objects.
Scientists wanted to understand the asteroids we couldn't see yet, especially the ones with more circular orbits. They ran simulations to study how those lower eccentricity asteroids might move, whether any of them could threaten Earth in the near future, and whether the new Vera Rubin Observatory with the biggest astronomy camera ever built would be able to spot them. The results showed something worrying. Even some low eccentricity orbits could bring long-term risk to Earth. Even worse, the Reuben Observatory will only be able to see these objects during short windows at certain times of the year. That means many of them could still slip by unnoticed.
Now, this creates a real problem for planetary defense. It's hard to prepare for the danger if you can't see it coming. One way to fix this blind spot would be to place a space observatory near Venus or even in the same orbit as Venus so it can watch that region directly. NASA's upcoming NEO surveyor mission might also help by studying the inner solar system where these objects hide. In the end, scientists think groundbased surveys like the Reuben Observatory will catch some of these asteroids, but not all. To map the full population of Venus co-orbitals, we'll need a dedicated space mission close to Venus. Right now, astronomers have identified only 20 Venus co-orbital asteroids. All but one have an eccentricity higher than 0.38.
These stretched out orbits carry them farther from the sun, where telescopes on Earth have a fighting chance to spot them. But there should be many more asteroids with more circular paths that stay closer to the sun's glare. So, what if we spotted a visitor from Venus when it was already approaching Earth? What would we do? Well, we could launch a bunch of nuclear explosives at the asteroid. If we could just blow it to pieces while it was still far away, the debris would scatter safely into space instead of causing problems near Earth.
On the other hand, what if the explosion accidentally changed the asteroid's path and sent some fragments toward Earth?
It's a real possibility. Or we could gently nudge it off its course toward Earth. But it would only work if we knew exactly the weight of the asteroid.
Without knowing its mass, space agencies wouldn't be able to design a precise mission to knock it off course. In theory, they could send out a reconnaissance spacecraft first, something to get close to the asteroid, measure it, and figure out the best way to push it away. But what if we didn't have enough time for that? By the time we collected all the needed data and built the right hardware, it'd be too late to intercept the asteroid. By the way, NASA actually has some experience with asteroid defense. Back in 2022, they pulled off something groundbreaking with their double asteroid redirection test or DART. That mission was all about proving that humans could physically change an asteroid's path without using explosives. NASA launched a small spacecraft in November 2021, and after almost a year of travel, it crashed headon into a tiny asteroid named Dorphos at about 14,000 mph. The idea was simple. If you hit an asteroid hard enough, you can slightly change its orbit, just enough to make it miss Earth someday. And it actually worked. The test showed that even a relatively small spacecraft could make a major difference. Now, the European Space Agency wants to doublech checkck exactly how much of an effect that crash had. In October 2024, they launched a follow-up spacecraft called Hera from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Hera is on a 2-year journey to reach Dimorphos and its bigger partner asteroid, the Daimos. By October 2026, Hera will enter orbit around the asteroid pair and start collecting data, basically checking NASA's math. ESSA scientists hope that once they analyze the impact site, they'll find out how effective Dart was at changing the asteroid's trajectory. In any case, Planetary Defense has to think about more ways to protect the planet from weward asteroids. It also has to take seriously the things we still can't see.
A huge asteroid several hundred feet across is dashing towards Earth through the black nothingness of the cosmos.
Ooh. Brace for the terrible news.
There's a 72% chance it might hit Earth in 14 years with potential impact zones being North America, Southern Europe, and North Africa, some of the most densely populated areas on the planet.
Astronomers have been keeping a close eye on the space invader for a few months, but now it's moved too close to the sun and trekking it is impossible for the next 7 months. Of course, there's a 28% chance that it will miss our planet altogether. But what if it doesn't? Global devastation and destruction. That's what thousands of lives lost, billions and billions of dollars in damage, entire species wiped off the face of the earth, ruined cities and towns, destroyed fields and forests.
We're left wondering whether it's the future awaiting for us. Well, now you can breathe easy. That's just a hypothetical scenario created by NASA to prepare for a situation like this. The space agency has been thinking about this kind of disaster for years. Even cooler, they run what if asteroid exercises every 2 years to get scientists, state agencies, and international experts on the same page.
The last one occurred in April. Over a 100 people took part in that event.
During such asteroid drills, experts pretend that a giant space rock is heading our way. Then they work through all the tricky questions they can come up with, like how big is it? Where might it hit? What should we do? It's like a massive brainstorming session. To make sure that if it ever happens, we won't have to start from scratch.
To make these scenarios feel as real as possible, NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies gets involved. These are folks who track real asteroids and calculate their orbit. So they simulate months of asteroid observations complete with uncertainties about its size, trajectory, and potential impact zones.
It's the kind of uncertainty that makes decision-making way harder, just like it would be in real life. Now, if an astronaut really was aiming at Earth, it wouldn't be just one country's problem.
It would be everyone's. That's why this exercise brings in international experts in April. It happened for the first time. They worked alongside US agencies like NASA's planetary defense coordination office and FEMA to understand how the world might respond to such a crisis since an asteroid impact would have dire consequences globally. Now the big question is can we actually stop an asteroid from hitting Earth. Here there are two main options experts consider. First, we could send a spacecraft to gather more info. If we knew more about the asteroid's size, mass, and orbit, we'd be able to make better decisions about what to do next.
The second option is to try to deflect it. Basically, it means bumping the asteroid off its course so that it misses Earth. This might sound impossible, but NASA's Dart mission has already proven that we can do it. Two years ago, they crashed a spacecraft into a small asteroid called Dorphus and successfully changed its orbit. It was a huge victory for planetary defense. But missions like that take tons of time to plan, prepare, and carry out. That's why spotting dangerous asteroids as early as possible is so important. Currently, NASA is working on a new telescope called Neo Surveyor, which is set to launch in 2027.
Unlike good old telescopes, Neo Surveyor is designed to detect even the trickiest asteroids, including ones orbiting close to the sun. It'll give us a better chance to act early and potentially stop an asteroid before it becomes a threat.
If you still think that an asteroid impact is something out of science fiction and the threat isn't real, how about this? Early on Sunday, January 21st, a small asteroid about 3 ft wide entered Earth's atmosphere. and luckily burned up over Germany. NASA's scout impact system spotted it 95 minutes before it hit and predicted exactly when and where it would arrive. At 1:32 a.m.
local time, the asteroid turned into a blazing bright fireball, visible as far away as the Czech Republic. Some small meteorites might have landed near the impact site about 37 mi west of Berlin.
This is just the eighth time ever that an asteroid has been detected before it hit Earth. It's a splendid example of how tools like Scout are helping us track asteroids and prepare for anything bigger that might come our way. Here's another example. A small asteroid turned the skies over northeastern Siberia into a breathtaking light show on December the 4th, burning up harmlessly in Earth's atmosphere. The space rock about 28 in across was spotted just hours before it hit. Thanks to observations from astronomers around the world, a special alert system managed to predict the impact to plus or minus 10 seconds.
The asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere at 1:15 a.m. local time. The authorities were put on alert, but there was no damage reports. NASA's Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System or Atlas, spotted the rock 12 hours before it entered the atmosphere. This makes it the fourth imminent impactor, which is an asteroid discovered within hours of its expected impact detected this year and the 11th overall. Now, China also has big plans for planetary defense.
They're working on their first mission to hit an asteroid, and it's got a double purpose. One spacecraft will crash into the asteroid and the other will hang back to study the whole thing for up to a year. In other words, it's not just about protecting Earth. It's also a way to learn more about the solar system. The target is an asteroid called 2015 XF261, which is a mouthful and also about 100 ft wide. It flew by Earth recently on July 9th, passing us at 31 million miles. True, it's pretty far away. But the space traveler was zooming by at a speed of 26,000 mph, 30 times faster than the speed of sound. China is going to send a space probe to study the asteroid. They're hoping to learn more about its structure and composition, which could help us with future planetary defense missions. Then they plan to hit the asteroid with another spacecraft to test the impact. And the first space probe will stay there to observe the remains for up to a year.
Timing is critical for this mission and the asteroid offers some good opportunities in the next few years.
Thus, in March and May of 2027, the asteroid will pass within 20 million m of Earth. In April 2028, it'll get even closer. By that, I mean 13 million miles away. A year later, in April 2029, the asteroid will end up just 4.2 million miles away, making it the best shot for a mission. Another decent chance will be April 2030. That's when the asteroid will pass our planet at 4.4 million miles. To give you some context, NASA's Dart mission once targeted an asteroid 7 million mi away, and the trip took 10 months. So, China's planners have to pick the right moment depending on how long their spacecraft will need to get there. The mission is expected to start around 2027. At the same time, this won't be China's first attempt to target an asteroid. Back in 2023, they were planning a planetary defense test with a different asteroid, which is also about 100 ft wide. It's not clear why they switched to the current one, probably because the timing works better. Most asteroids are basically time capsules from 4.6 billion years ago, leftovers from when the solar system was just forming. Studying them could tell us a lot about how planets, including Earth, came to be. So, China's taking on something that combines planetary defense and pure space science. They're definitely making big moves in the space exploration game.
So, how do you feel about cooking? Nah, pasta and burgers are overrated. How about something more exotic, or rather more cosmic? So, the recipe is simple.
Take a team of enthusiastic astronomers and add some old images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Stir really well and you'll get a shocking number of tiny asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Yummy. The highlight of this dish is the direction in which some of the asteroids are moving because in their way there's our poor planet.
Are we doomed just because you decided to cook? Now, the asteroids I'm talking about are much smaller than the massive space rock that wiped out the dinosaurs, but they can still cause considerable damage. They range in size from as small as a bus to as big as a stadium. But even those small ones pack quite a punch. Let's look at a recent dramatic example. It happened on February 15th, 2013. A small asteroid just tens of feet wide exploded in an air burst over Chelubanks in Siberia, releasing an insane amount of energy. Many people witnessed and recorded the event, and it gave scientists vital clues. New computer models helped scientists reconstruct the size, speed, and impact of the Chelubinsk meteor. It was likely an asteroid about the size of a five-story building, exploding from 15 to 18 mi above Earth's surface with an enormous, incomparable force. The blast shattered a million windows and hurt over a thousand people. Fortunately, it wasn't powerful enough to cause too much damage, but it gave us an idea about how dangerous an air burst can be. Now, an air burst occurs when an object explodes high in the atmosphere, never striking the ground, but releasing enough energy to devastate the area. But back to the small asteroids, the most dangerous thing about them is that they hit the Earth far more often than the larger ones, about 10,000 times more frequently. To make matters worse, their small size makes them harder to detect in advance, leaving little time for preparation if one is heading towards Earth. Now, let's travel back in time.
Uh-oh, dinosaurs too far back. Ah, there we go. A team of astronomers is working on a special method to find small asteroids and telescope images that were originally taken to study distant stars.
Using this method, they've looked through thousands of JWST images of a star system called Trappist 1. It's located 40 light years away and is one of the most studied systems outside our solar system. Now, while analyzing these images, they discovered 138 new asteroids in the main asteroid belt, plus eight they already knew about. And guess what? Among the newly found asteroids, six seem to have been pushed into paths that could bring them closer to Earth. Who did it? Well, probably nearby planets. Are they holding a grudge against Earth?
Interestingly, scientists thought they'd find just a few new asteroids, but the number was much higher than they expected. Yet, it's no wonder. Right now, they're exploring a part of space they didn't know much about before. Now, let's talk about the hero of the day, the James Web Space Telescope. It's especially good at finding small asteroids because it can detect their heat. These asteroids give off infrared radiation, which is much easier to see than the faint sunlight that reflects off their surfaces. This technology allowed scientists to spot the smallest asteroids ever seen in the main asteroid belt. The asteroids they found are pieces left over from collisions between bigger space rocks. Finding them helps astronomers understand the history of the asteroid belt and improve methods for tracking small asteroids that could threaten Earth. The researchers are planning to use James Web to observe other star systems for at least 500 hours. They expect this work to uncover thousands more small asteroids in the solar system. Other advanced telescopes like the Verac Rubin Observatory in Chile will also help. Starting in 2025, this observatory will use the world's largest digital camera to photograph the southern sky every night for at least 10 years. Each image will cover a huge area of the sky, about 40 times the size of the full moon. The observatory might find up to 2 and 12 million asteroids in just 6 months, almost doubling the number we know about.
Recently, NASA has identified two small asteroids. They were supposed to pass near Earth on December 16th, 2024.
Luckily, neither posed any danger to our planet. The first asteroid was 71 ft wide, about the size of a large airplane, and was traveling at 10,800 mph. The second asteroid was slightly smaller, 56 ft wide. But it traveled faster at 14,700 mph. But hey, even though this time the danger has passed, who knows what the future will bring.
It may sound weird these days, but astronomers didn't really care much about small asteroids for a rather long time. They thought of them as just random space debris that got in the way of observing stars. Some even called them sky parasites. But now, the way we see these little space rocks has completely changed. You see, until recently, we could only spot really big asteroids, those over a mile wide. The smaller ones just blended into the background noise and telescope images.
But then a clever trick appeared where multiple images of the same part of the sky were combined, making those faint small objects finally stand out. The data from certain telescopes along with the James Web Space Telescope helps us improve planetary defense. But there's more to it than just protecting our planet. Studying these small asteroids also teaches us about how the solar system evolved. There are so many of them because they're fragments from collisions between bigger space rocks.
One researcher has said this is like looking at old data in a new way. These small asteroids, which people used to think of as space junk, are crucial for understanding our solar system and even preparing for whatever the future holds.
Among those hundreds of millions of rocks orbiting the sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, some are especially worrisome. They come close enough to Earth for it to be quite concerning. NASA classifies asteroids that orbit within 30 million miles of our planet as near Earth objects, and those could pose a serious threat if they were to collide with our planet.
Right now, NASA is closely monitoring an asteroid named Bennu. This is a fairly large space rock measuring about 1,600 feet across. It could potentially crash into Earth in 159 years. First, the astronauts spotted it in 1999.
So, currently, experts believe that there's a small chance Bennu could drift into Earth's orbit and collide with our planet by September 24th, 2182.
Would it be bad?
Well, to put it in perspective, Bennu is taller than the Empire State Building.
If it hit Earth, it would generate 1,200 megat tons of energy, an amount so massive that nothing on Earth could generate that. NASA scientists are particularly concerned about a tiny chance that Bennu could pass through a gravitational keyhole during a flyby in the 22nd century. This keyhole is a region in space that could set the asteroid on a path that brings it directly to Earth. Now, Bennu flies by Earth every 6 years and has had three close encounters with us in 1999, 2005, and 2011. Right now, scientists estimate that the chance of Bennu hitting Earth by 2182 is about 1 in 2700, more than five times greater than the chance of being struck by lightning. Although the chances of Bennu colliding with Earth are very low right now, this space rock is still classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid because it might come as close as 4.65 million miles to Earth.
Now, this asteroid is another space rock that we need to keep an eye on. It's a near-Earth object about,00 ft across and it was discovered in 2004. Initially, it was considered one of the most dangerous asteroids ever detected. Apous quickly gained attention because experts believed it could pose a serious threat to Earth because of its close approach to our planet in 2029. However, after further study of its orbit, astronomers determined that there was no risk of a collision for at least a century. Well, we can all breathe easier now, can't we?
Imagine an asteroid so full of valuable metals that it could make every person on Earth a billionaire. Well, that's not science fiction. It's 16 Psyche, a massive metallic space rock orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. It isn't just extraordinary because of its value, estimated at 10 quintilion.
That's a figure that dwarfs the global economy many times over. It also has clues about the formation of planets, especially the rocky worlds like Earth.
In October 2023, NASA launched the Psyche spacecraft. This mission is to explore the cosmic treasure trove. It's supposed to arrive at the asteroid in August 2029, and astronomers hope that it will give us some insights not just about the asteroid's glittering wealth, but also about how planets form and evolve in our solar system.
But what exactly makes Psyche unique?
First discovered in 1852 by an Italian astronomer, it was the 16th asteroid people identified, hence its name. It stands out among the millions of space rocks in the asteroid belt for one main reason, its metallic composition.
While most asteroids are rocky or icy, Psyche seems to be made primarily of iron, nickel, and possibly even gold and other rare metals.
At about 173 mi wide, it isn't the largest asteroid. It's easily dwarfed by others like seriesir. But its size is still impressive. After all, its surface area is 64,000 square miles, like that of the state of Florida. Astronomers think that between 30 and 60% of the asteroid surface might consist of precious metals.
They also think that this space rock might be the exposed core of a planet Tessimal. A planet Tessimal is basically a protolanet, a large space body in orbit around a star developing into a planet. And this planet Tessimal could have grown into a full-fledged planet if it hadn't been destroyed in some catastrophic collision billions of years ago. If this theory is correct, Psyche can give us a unique glimpse into what lies deep within terrestrial planets like Earth, where planetary cores are hidden thousands of miles beneath thick crusts and mantles.
Now, remember that spacecraft that went to explore the asteroid? After embarking on its ambitious mission, the Psyche probe will travel a mind-boggling 2.2 billion miles to reach its goal. This journey will take nearly 6 years. On its way to the asteroid, the spacecraft will pass by Mars in May 2026 and use the red planet's gravity to slingshot itself deeper into space. This maneuver is called a gravity assist and it will boost the velocity of the probe and refine its trajectory toward the asteroid. By the time it reaches its goal in August 2029, the spacecraft will be set to orbit the asteroid for at least 26 months. During this time, it will analyze its surface, figure out its composition, and attempt to unravel its history.
The probe is equipped with some pretty cool tools. One of them is called a multisspectral imager. This instrument will snap highresolution images of the asteroid surface. It's supposed to help astronomers to study its texture and composition. Then the probe has a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer.
This instrument will measure the asteroid's chemical elements, including its metal content.
A magneettometer will detect a magnetic field, if any, which could confirm Psyche's origin as a planetary core.
And finally, an Xband radio system will help determine the asteroid's gravity field, which can offer insights into the asteroid's internal structure.
NASA isn't sending the spacecraft to assess the value of the space rock as a mining target. Well, at least not yet.
The main goal of the mission is science.
Researchers hope to answer fundamental questions about how planets form and evolve. And this asteroid could help us understand what happens when molten material solidifies into a core. Another question we need to answer to is why did it fail to become a planet? And understanding the history of the asteroid might shed light on why some celestial bodies grow into planets while others don't.
While NASA's mission is purely exploratory, it has also sparked interest from the point of view of asteroid mining. With its estimated worth of 10 quintillion dollars, Psyche could theoretically supply enough raw materials to revolutionize industries on Earth. Mining it is likely to be decades away, if it ever happens altogether. But the idea still sounds amazing. At the same time, if the asteroid's metals were somehow brought to Earth, their abundance could cause the value of precious metals like gold to plummet, and it would wreak havoc on global markets.
Speaking of valuable resources, let's find out how Earth got its own gold, platinum, and other rare metals. These elements, aka highly cideraphile elements, have a cosmic origin story, and it's every bit as dramatic as psyches.
These precious metals were born in violent cosmic events billions of years ago. Many appeared in kilon nove explosive collisions between neutron stars. These metals were then scattered across space and eventually became part of the gas and dust cloud that formed our solar system.
When Earth formed, those metals sank towards its ironrich core. But not all of them ended up deep inside the planet.
Destructive collisions with rogue protolanets like the Mars-sized Thea, which most likely helped to form the moon, trapped some elements in Earth's mantle. Recent computer models have explained how this happened. After each major collision, Earth's surface temporarily became a magma ocean, a molten layer of rock. As metal sank through the magma, they reached a partially solid layer that slowed their descent, keeping them in the mantle instead of the core. These metals then moved closer to the surface under the influence of thermal convection. That's what made them accessible for mining billions of years later.
While Psyche's metals are all over the news, space has more to offer than just gold and iron. Scientists have discovered or rather theorized the existence of different gemstones scattered across the cosmos like diamonds.
The thing is diamonds are made of pure carbon and this element is abundant in the universe. On Earth, diamonds form deep in the mantle under high pressure and temperature. In space, conditions for diamond formation can occur in surprising places. For example, nano diamonds, which are really tiny diamonds, have been found in meteorites.
Sometimes they contain gases that give us clues about the early solar system.
Scientists believe that it might rain diamonds on our ice giants Neptune and Uranus. There, high pressures compress carbon into crystalline form.
Researchers have also predicted that exoplanets in other solar systems could have gemstones like rubies and sapphires depending on their size and proximity to their stars. Even Earth's moon had its own share of cosmic minerals. Scientists have found some traces of cubic zirconia in lunar rocks.
So, space might hold even more treasures than we've imagined.
But let's get back to the Psyche mission.
It might not only reveal the whole potential of space resources, but also underline the issues we could face while dealing with them. For example, mining an asteroid would require the usage of autonomous robots, machines capable of operating in harsh space environments.
Plus, we would need efficient transport systems to bring materials back to Earth or process them in orbit.
We would need to make sure that mining activities wouldn't damage ecosystems or space environments. There are also legal and ethical issues like the outer space treaty of 1967.
It prohibits any nation from claiming sovereignty over celestial bodies.
But with private companies entering the space race, debates over ownership and resource sharing are heating up.
And finally, bringing such amounts of metals to Earth could destabilize global markets. So, experts suggest that space resources might be better used in space for building habitats, satellites, and spacecraft.
But no matter whether we ever mine 16 Psyche or not, its exploration will teach us more about the early solar system and the processes that shaped our planet.
As of December 1st, 2024, the probe is heading for the asteroid following the orbit around the sun. Its journey promises not only to deepen our knowledge of the universe, but also to redefine what's possible for humanity as we reach for the stars.
Asteroids are a serious, very real danger. Some of them are big enough to cause a lot of trouble if they collide with Earth. One asteroid in particular is making headlines these days. A new study has revealed there's a small chance it could hit our planet during its close flyby in 2029. But the question is unusual. Will the asteroid survive this encounter? Apous, which got its name from Apab, the Egyptian deity of chaos and disorder, has become one of the most infamous asteroids. Discovered in 2004, this space object is about,00 ft wide. It's about the height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Because of its size and the close flyby predicted for 2029, astronomers classify Apous as a potentially hazardous object. Those are asteroids and other space objects that pass close to Earth and are big enough that we really need to pay attention to them. Right now, scientists say the chances of a collision are slim, less than one in a billion. So, at the moment, we can probably claim that Earth is out of danger. But the same can't be said about the asteroid itself. When Apous passes close to Earth in 2029, our planet's gravity is likely to shake it so violently that it may experience something like an earthquake, a cosmic asteroid quake, if you will. The stress from this gravitational force will probably cause parts of the asteroid surface to crack off and fly into space.
And even though this might not be a full-blown disaster and the asteroid won't fall apart completely, it's very likely to lose some material during the flyby. Some of this debris might just stick around in orbit, while other bits could fly off into deep space. Over time, this catastrophe could affect Apotheus' rotation, causing it to spin differently or tilt in a way it hasn't before. And this is a phenomenon scientists are really interested in because it could teach us a lot about how asteroids react when powerful gravity is pulling on them. Now, let's get back to Earth. Well, we haven't left. Anyway, even though the asteroid isn't big enough to wipe out the planet like the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs, it's large enough to cause serious damage to a large city if it ever collided with Earth. It could mess with the climate all over the planet, too. At the moment, it looks like the space rock will sail past Earth at a distance of around 20,000 mi. It's still worryingly close, but far enough to avoid a collision. To put it in perspective, that's less than a tenth of the distance between Earth and the moon.
So, while Apous likely won't hit us, this flyby could still cause problems for some of the satellites orbiting Earth, they will be much closer to Apous than we are. The key point is that we can't rule out a risk of a collision in a few more years. As Apous gets closer, astronomers will keep a very close eye on its trajectory to make sure it doesn't veer off course due to the influence of Earth's gravity. In fact, this gravitational pull could actually cause some serious changes to the asteroid itself. Now, even though Apous is not likely to cause a global disaster if it were to hit Earth, the consequences would still be pretty severe. The impact could destroy an entire city and the resulting climate changes could mess with food production for years. It wouldn't be an extinction level event, but it would still be a huge deal. Now, Apous is not the only asteroid we need to worry about.
Scientists are constantly on the lookout for other asteroids that could potentially cause harm to our planet.
Thanks to new technology, astronomers can now track dangerous space rocks from way farther out in space. One cool new method they're using involves studying meteor showers. These showers are actually caused by long period comets that have been orbiting the sun for hundreds or even thousands of years. As these comets pass by, they leave a trail of dust and debris, which can end up creating meteor showers when Earth passes through them. Scientists analyze the properties of meteor showers like their speed, direction, and where they come from. This can help them trace the particles back to their parent comet or asteroid. It's actually a big deal because it means we might be able to spot potentially hazardous asteroids long before they get close to Earth. The upcoming legacy survey of space and time project, which is being run out of the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile, is going to help astronomers track these space rocks from even farther away.
Astronomers are going to create a detailed map of the sky and the regions where meteor showers are most likely to occur. It'll help them predict which asteroids might become a problem for Earth in the future, giving us plenty of time to prepare or come up with a plan.
But even now, there are many space rocks that can potentially cause a lot of trouble to our planet. Let's look at some of them. Here's the asteroid Bennu.
Astronomers discovered it in 1999. This carbonrich rock is about 1,600 ft across. It's the height of the Shanghai World Financial Center. Didn't you know that? At the moment, this asteroid is the greatest threat to Earth that we're aware of. But don't panic yet. The collision won't happen for a long time.
In fact, scientists calculate a 0.037% chance, which is about 1 in 2700, of Bennu striking Earth on September 24th, 2182.
I won't be around then. If Bennu does hit our planet, the impact would release so much energy that it would be enough to cause massive destruction in a large region. But luckily, it wouldn't wipe out the entire planet. Still, if Bennu hit a city, the consequences could be catastrophic. NASA's Osiris Rex spacecraft has recently visited Bennu and returned with samples, so scientists are learning more about this asteroid all the time.
The next asteroid is another one to keep an eye on. It was first discovered in 1950, but wasn't seen again until 2000.
Right now, scientists say there's a very slim chance, one in 34,500.
Mhm. That it could hit Earth on March 16th, 2880, 800 years into the future.
So, am I worried? Nah. If it did strike, it would release so much energy, it could lead to a global catastrophe, potentially wiping out humanity or not.
Our next asteroid has been discovered only recently. It was spotted in October 2023. It has a very low chance of striking Earth on October 10th, 2119.
Man, they got it down to the day. Now, if it were to collide with our planet, the impact would release a lot of energy, which would have a devastating effect for large areas. So, while the arrival of this asteroid is a long shot, this asteroid is still worth keeping an eye on. Now, this asteroid is known as a lost asteroid because it hasn't been seen since 2007. No wonder it has a very uncertain orbit and we can't predict its movements. NASA says there's a tiny chance, about 1 in 10 million, that it could strike Earth on March 3rd, 2030.
If it did, the energy released would be able to cause huge regional damage.
Finally, we've got this space wanderer.
On the one hand, it hasn't been seen since 1979.
On the other, scientists believe that there's a very low chance that it could hit Earth on December 14th, 2113. Mark your calendars. If it did, the impact would cause a lot of damage and devastation, but it would not lead to the end of humanity. Now, in any case, even though the chances of an asteroid hitting Earth are low, the consequences of such an event could be huge. That's why scientists are so focused on studying these space rocks and tracking their movements. Thanks to new technologies, we can track dangerous objects from farther away and catch them earlier. It can give us more time to react and come up with some effective solutions. Hundreds of millions of rocks orbit the sun within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but only some of them come relatively close to Earth.
NASA classifies asteroids orbiting within 30 million miles of our planet as near Earth objects. And inside this group, there are particularly worrisome objects. Those are so large and orbit so closely to our home planet that they could turn into a real threat to the world should a direct collision occur.
At the moment, NASA is keeping a close eye on an asteroid named Bennu. It's a fairly large space object that might smash into our planet in 159 years.
According to the experts, the asteroid, which was first spotted in 1999, is quite likely to drift into the orbit of our planet. If it happens, it might collide with Earth by the 24th of September, 2182.
Asteroid Bennu is thought to be taller than the Empire State Building. If that hits our planet, the collision will release 1,200 megat tons of energy.
That's an enormous amount of energy that nothing built on Earth could produce.
Scientists from NASA believe that during the flyby in the 22nd century, there's a tiny chance that the asteroid will pass through a gravitational keyhole. That's a region of space that might set the space traveler on a certain path, which could result in the asteroid crashing into Earth. Bennu flies by our planet every 6 years. It has had three close encounters with Earth in 1999, 2005, and 2011. These days, scientists estimate the chance of the asteroid hitting our planet by 2182 as 1 in 2,700.
That's more than five times a person's chance of being struck by lightning.
But even though Bennu's chance of colliding with Earth are quite low at the moment, the space rock has still been categorized as a quote potentially hazardous asteroid. All because it might come as close as 4.65 million miles from Earth. That's the reason why it's also classified as a near-earth object. Bennu is a carbonrich asteroid that was formed in the first 10 million years of the history of the solar system. That's around 4.5 billion years ago. No wonder this space body holds precious clues to the origin and development of the rocky planets of our solar system, which are, as you recall, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Even better, it may contain organic molecules similar to those that are crucial for life to evolve. In 2020, NASA's Osiris Rex managed to briefly touch the surface of the asteroid. They collected some samples and propelled off the space rock afterward. For NASA, it was the first mission of this kind.
But it won't probably come as a surprise that Bennu isn't the only asteroid we should worry about. Asteroid 99942, Apous, is another space body we'd better watch out for. It's a near-Earth object about 1,100 ft across. It was discovered in 2004, and at first, it was identified as one of the most dangerous asteroids ever detected. Ooh. Apous gained notoriety very fast. It was believed to pose a serious threat to Earth. Experts predicted that it would come uncomfortably close to our planet in 2029.
Luckily, after a more careful examination of a Poffus and its orbit, astronomers concluded that there was no risk of the asteroid colliding with our planet for at least a century. The risk of an impact in 2029 was ruled out completely, as well as the potential impact that could be caused by the asteroid's close approach in 2036.
Interestingly, until March 2021, there was a small chance of a collision in 2068, but then AOUS made a flyby of Earth, and astronomers took this chance to use powerful radars to estimate the asteroid's orbit around the sun more precisely. This allowed them to rule out any impact risk for at least the next 100 years.
Now, the reason why such discoveries make us so worried is that even a relatively small asteroid the size of a house can wreak havoc upon colliding with our planet. And if an asteroid is larger than 0.6 mi across, astronomers call it a planet destroyer. The impact energy released by such an asteroid after striking Earth could be devastating. That's why knowing where such asteroids are and in what direction they're moving is crucial. The problem is that our capability to protect the planet from asteroid impacts is not topnotch yet. If such a catastrophe was about to occur, we would need some time to prepare because an asteroid collision is no joke. Probably the most well-known asteroid impact site is the Chickixaloop Crater. It's the evidence of the terrifying collision that led to the extinction of dinosaurs. Strangely, this crater isn't very visible, but some others are. For example, Behringer Crater in Arizona, which is also called Meteor Crater. It looks rather blood chilling when you think about the collision that led to its appearance.
In any case, we now know that space rocks hit not only the Earth, but also the moon, Mercury, and Mars. No rocky planet in the solar system is safe from asteroid impacts. That's why we have an entire scientific enterprise whose goal is to find and catalog the asteroid population of the solar system. Now, it might sound a bit scary, but there are around 25,000 asteroids larger than 460 ft in diameter near the orbit of our planet. Such a space rock is large enough to wipe an entire city off the face of the Earth. So far, less than 50% of such asteroids have been detected and tracked. There are also an estimated 230,000 objects equal to or larger than 160 ft in size. Those are capable of destroying a concentrated urban area and still fewer than 8% of those have been detected. There are also tens of millions of smaller near-Earth objects.
They are larger than 33 ft across and might cause some surface damage. Less than 1% of such small space bodies have been discovered so far.
Now, the thing is, the inner solar system is extremely challenging for asteroid search. Each night, there are only two 10-minute windows when astronomers can observe the region. All because the sun's glare creates a very bright background glow. Plus, the atmosphere of our planet also distorts and blurs observations. Spotting asteroids in such conditions is beyond the capabilities of most telescopes. A unique instrument is needed to fulfill this task and the tool of choice is the dark energy camera at Serero Interamerican Observatory in Chile. This device wasn't designed to hunt asteroids. Researchers built it to search for another elusive target, dark energy, the mysterious force driving the expansion of the universe. The DEEC is supposed to observe hundreds of millions of galaxies. That's why it's both wide and deep. This way, it can both peer deep into the universe and capture a wide field of view, which helps it record the motions of galaxies and the conditions in the early age of the universe.
But it also means that the DEC is perfectly suited to spotting asteroids near the sun. Inner asteroids are rare and deep images are necessary because such asteroids are faint. Scientists need to be able to fight both the bright twilight sky near our star and the distorting effect of Earth's atmosphere and the DEC can help them achieve their goal. The dark energy camera was built to carry out the dark energy survey which finished in 2019. Now astronomers can direct the power of the camera towards other tasks. They claim that the DEEC's survey is one of the most sensitive searches ever performed for objects near Venus's orbit and within the orbit of our planet. It provides us a great chance to find out what kinds of objects are lurking in the inner solar system.
Asteroids flying around is sometimes like a fierce game of dodgeball where you never know when some of them can go in your direction. So, we can just track the situation and hope for the best. To figure out the risk, scientists from different organizations have to study the positions and paths of the asteroids that come close to our planet, especially those that are at least 0.6 mi wide. And the good news is that none of these asteroids will probably hit us for at least the next 1,000 years. Phew.
To give us an idea of their power, scientists did an experiment to simulate the impact of such a gigantic asteroid.
The energy released from the collision would be a mind-blowing 100,000 megat tons. That's like detonating 15,000 tons of dynamite.
Also, if such a big asteroid hit us, Earth would cool down significantly because of all that debris that would go into the atmosphere and block sunlight.
Plants wouldn't be able to get their fuel in this case, so we'd all be in trouble, both humans and animals.
Thankfully, such mammoth asteroid impacts are quite rare. The larger an asteroid, the longer it takes it to collide with Earth. For example, it's estimated that asteroids with diameters of at least 0.6 mi strike our planet about once every 700,000 years. And if we're talking about even bigger ones that are 3 mi wide, well, those are predicted to come crashing down only once every 30 million years. Yay. But hold on, don't get too relaxed just yet.
Astronomers focus on really large asteroids because those are the ones that can kind of doom our planet if they hit us.
Yep, you got it right in a dinosaur kind of way. Even if one of them didn't erase us completely, the damage would still be enormous. So, there are still some asteroids wandering around that we need to keep an eye on to see how they might evolve over time. Scientists have a model of tracking them where they focus on the parts of an asteroid's path that come close to our planet to see if the space rock poses a risk to us. And it seems there might be one asteroid 7482 1994 PC1 3,600 ft in diameter that might pose some danger. It's supposed to come closer to our planet in the next 1,000 years. And when I say risky, it means there's a 0.0151% chance of it coming within one Earth moon distance. It already passed by us in 2022, but we were lucky because it was far enough 1.2 million miles. I'd say we can relax when it comes to asteroid scenarios for now. Asteroids slamming into Earth would be new for humankind, but not for the planet itself. As I said, there weren't many of those big ones, but they still had enormous consequences. The first one that comes to most people's minds is, of course, the dinosaur asteroid as big as a mountain that struck our home planet around 66 million years ago near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. It was chaotic. Global firestorms and tsunamis were all over the place. Dust was blocking out the sun and vaporized rock released sulfur, which then led to acid rain and the acidification of the oceans. But there was an even bigger fella that came before that one. Around 2 billion years ago, a gigantic asteroid crashed into our planet and left a massive crater in South Africa. The one we know today as the Redfort crater. And it seems this asteroid might have been even bigger than we all originally thought. Twice as wide as the space rock that erased dinosaurs. The Retaphor crater is confirmed to be the biggest visible crater on Earth with a diameter of about 99 mi. It used to be even bigger when it first formed, though, maybe even 155 to 174 mi across. It's hard to figure out its true size because the crater has been eroding for the past 2 billion years. Think of it like slicing off layers from the rim of a bowl. The diameter gets smaller with each slice. When the asteroid 7 or 5 mi wide that wiped away dinosaurs hit Earth about 66 million years ago, it caused massive destruction. Forest fires, acid rain, tsunamis, and so much ash and dust that it changed Earth's climate. This all made about 75% of life on our planet extinct.
The asteroid that created the Redfort crater was not only bigger, but it also traveled at a higher speed, which means the consequences there would have been even worse. But it happened a long time ago, and living beings were different back then. Maybe it was some bacteria that didn't even notice that something unusual was happening. Earth is not the only one. Lots of impacts have happened across our solar system, too. For example, in our close neighborhood. Yep.
Moving to Mercury and its massive crater called the Coloris Basin. It measures about 950 mi across, which is more than the state of Texas. There's a ring of towering mountains around the crater, which makes it look even more impressive. You can see different colors in the mosaic image of the Coloris Basin. They tell us more about the geology of the basin. The orange parts represent lava that once flooded the basin. These lava flows covered the original surface and added the specific orange hue. And after the lava flooded the basin on Mercury, smaller craters formed on top of the lava surface. These craters dug into the ground and uncovered the material hidden beneath the lava. Some of this material is blue in color. And this blue stuff could be a clue about what the original floor of the basin had looked like before the lava covered it.
Venus, the hottest planet in our solar system, has a thick atmosphere that comes with a pretty good defense system against space rocks. It's so dense that it burns up most meteors before they even reach its surface. As a result, you won't see as many visible craters on Venus as on other rocky planets in our solar system.
But Venus still has some scars that can tell us about some serious impacts that happened there. And one of the biggest scars we know about is me crater. It's enormous, about 170 mi in diameter. The inner floor of this crater is relatively flat and kind of brighter than its surroundings. It's possible that the crater ended up filled with a mixture of melted rock after the impact and maybe even lava from volcanic activity on Venus.
Want to get an idea of what Earth might look like without its protective layer called atmosphere?
Just take a look at the moon. Its surface is littered with impact craters.
This Tao is one of the craters you'll easily notice on the moon. When you look at the full moon, you can spot it as a distinct circle with bright rays that radiate outward slightly offc center on the lower left side of the moon. This crater, 53 mi wide, has a beautiful central peak in the middle that's topped with an intriguing boulder. The size of this boulder is impressive. It would fill about half of a typical city block here on Earth. When talking about craters, we definitely can't leave out Mars. The red planet has a much thinner atmosphere than Earth. When spacecraft approach Mars, they rely on the planet's atmosphere to slow them down as they enter it. And indeed, the atmosphere helps slow spacecraft down during landing. But it's still not thick enough to completely protect Mars from all those space rocks that are coming all the time. From July to September 2018, a dark spot appeared on the southern pole of Mars. It consists of two distinct patterns. A theory says that the bigger lighter colored blast pattern can be the result of an impact shock wave scouring the ice surface. The impact generated winds that spread out and scoured the ice. The inner blast pattern, which is darker in color, occurred because the impacting object managed to penetrate the thin ice layer. As it hit the surface, it sent dark sand and debris flying in all
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