NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer has discovered 10 potentially dangerous to humanity Near-Earth-asteroids and 86 other newly discovered near-Earth space rocks during the past year. The space agency recently released a terrifying animation video of a swarm of comets and asteroids moving around our planet.
Details about the chilling discovery
The asteroids and comets were discovered by NASA’s Neowise spacecraft whose mission is to spot asteroids that have a chance of hitting Earth.
Astronomers analyzing the collected data have reported an unusual increase in asteroid and comet activity mainly coming from an asteroid stream called Taurids, according to the Czech Academy Of Science.
The unusual activity has increased the risk of a large asteroid impact on our planet.
A new branch of asteroids that includes at least two relatively large near-Earth asteroids that have a diameter between 200-300 meters was discovered. What is most worrying is that this branch almost certainly includes more large asteroids that have not yet been spotted.
The newly discovered branch of asteroids has an orbit between the Earth and the sun. It encounters our planet once every few years and the encounter lasts about three weeks. According to the Czech Academy of Science, during these three weeks, the risk of a relatively large asteroid impact is quite high.
Even though the newly discovered asteroids are very fragile, their large size makes them potentially dangerous as they could penetrate deep into our planet’s atmosphere and cause devastating damage.
Potential consequences of an asteroid impact
An asteroid impact is not actually a very rare phenomenon since many small asteroids impact Earth almost every day. In fact, a very large asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs around 65 million years ago and made way for our evolution to occur. If a large enough asteroid hits Earth, it may very well do the same to humans.
Scientists believe that the question is not whether an asteroid will hit us but when. An asteroid impact could be small and without serious consequences, large enough to destroy a whole city or even larger that could destroy the entire human species.
Unfortunately, humanity is currently defenseless against such a threat. However, scientists are rigorously working on finding ways to avoid an impact. Hopefully, they will be successful before a potential impact occurs.
