NASA has raised red flags about the growing asteroid threats that could potentially damage Earth.
To our surprise, astronomers are unaware of the location of thousands of ‘city killer’ asteroids that pose risks to the planet, as admitted by NASA’s chief of planetary defense.
About 15,000 medium-sized rocks are undetected, according to Kelly Fast, acting planetary defense officer for NASA.
These massive rocks have a diameter of at least 140 meters and are sometimes called city killer asteroids. In the event of an attack on Earth, these rocks could potentially cause regional damage, Fast said at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Phoenix.
“It’s estimated there are about 25,000 of them and we’re only 40 percent of the way there. It takes time to find them, even with the best telescopes,” Fast said.
The earth is defenseless
To make matters worse, Earth will be defenseless against those city-killing asteroids if one of these rocks appears to be crashing toward Earth, as warned by Dr. Nancy Chatbot, a planetary scientist at John Hopkins University.
“We’re concerned about these city-killing asteroids,” Chabot said.
Last year, the threat of YR4 asteroids crashing into Earth put astronomers on high alert. Fortunately, the asteroid was later discovered to be moving away from Earth, but its trajectory could put it on a collision course in 2032.
According to Dr. Chatbot, there is still a possibility that it could hit the moon and the impact would be so intense that it would be visible to the naked eye from Earth.
Dr. Chatbot added: “If something like YR4 had headed towards Earth, there would be no way for us to actively fend off it. We could be prepared for this threat. And I don’t see that investment being made.”
