Three new near-Earth asteroid, all of which possess swifter, shorter orbits than the Earth’s around the Sun, were discovered by observations taken with the Dark Energy Camera near twilight. These objects, including a potential planet-killer, are among the toughest threats to identify. (Credit: DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine)

New Earth-threatening asteroid highlights humanity’s unpreparedness

The largest hazardous asteroid found in the last 8 years showcases a little-known class of planet-killers. And we’re woefully unprepared.

Looming over Earth lies a great extinction-level threat: asteroid impacts.

Earth, as well as all planets and moons with rocky surfaces, has experienced a large number of collisions from objects of extraterrestrial origin. Any impact that’s massive and energetic enough, in principle as well as in practice, could cause a mass extinction event if we don’t do something to mitigate it. (Credit: James Thew via Adobe Stock)

The K-Pg extinction event from 65 million years ago reminds us of this grave threat.

This diagram maps the data gathered from 1994–2013 on small asteroids impacting Earth’s atmosphere to create very bright meteors, technically called “bolides” and commonly referred to as “fireballs”. Sizes of red dots (daytime impacts) and blue dots (nighttime impacts) are proportional to the optical radiated energy of impacts measured in billions of Joules (GJ) of energy. The largest impactor over this time period, the Chelyabinsk meteorite, was only ~20 meters in diameter. (Credit: Planetary Science, NASA/JPL-Caltech)

A ~kilometer-sized or greater object could wipe out every human on Earth.

This infographic shows the original orbit of asteroid Dimorphos around the larger asteroid Didymos, along with the trajectory of NASA’s DART spacecraft and the presumed new orbit that will result. The new orbit changed by a much greater amount than simulations and calculations predicted, indicating that a better understanding of these redirection efforts are required before we begin relying on them to save our planet. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL)

Our greatest hope for survival relies on early detection and successful intervention.

Flyby spacecraft Deep Impact shows the flash that occurred when comet Tempel 1 ran over the spacecraft’s impactor probe. It was taken by the flyby craft’s High Resolution Instrument, Visual CCD camera (HRIV) over a period of about 40 seconds. Black borders are the result of image stabilization. The small change in momentum resulting from this impact did not appreciably alter the motion of Tempel 1. (Credit: Paul Stephen Carlin, NASA/JPL)