Space agency chief warns city-destroying asteroid could be hurtling towards earth now and we have 'no way to detect it'
As if you didn't have enough to worry about
A massively destructive asteroid could be heading straight for Earth right now, but we don’t have the technology to detect it or prevent it, according to an expert.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 has sparked concern, considering just how seriously NASA and other space agencies are taking the space rock.
The asteroid was only discovered on the back end of last year and is reportedly the size of the statue of Liberty but has the capacity to destroy an entire city if it struck the planet.
Astronomers also believe that 2024 YR4 would create a mid-air explosion after colliding with us, which would be around 8 million tons of TNT, and affect a 50-kilometer radius around the site.
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The collision is expected to happen in 2032 with NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) predicting that the chances of the asteroid colliding with our planet is one-in-43, or to be specific, 2.3 percent out of 100.
However, a scientist who works with the European Space Agency has warned the space rock or another asteroid could already be coming right at the planet.
Luca Conversi, an ESA scientist spoke to the Sun and warned that limitations could mean there are even bigger threats facing the planet and we simply might not know it.
He said this is because it could be lurking in the Earth’s blind spot. The biggest issue is we still don't have the tech to let us search the space between Earth and the Sun because it is simply too bright.
Conversi said: “There is a chance that something the size of YR4 is approaching from the Sun, but we just haven’t detected it.”
Speaking of the last major asteroid that struck the planet, he said it simply slipped through the net. The asteroid in question is the Chelyabinsk meteor that burnt up and landed in Russia when it entered the Earth’s atmosphere back in 2013.
He added: “[It went] completely undetected, because it came from the direction of the Sun.
“It didn’t hit anything - but it triggered a sonic boom which shattered all the windows in the nearby town Chelyabinsk.
“Hundreds of people who were watching through windows in their homes were injured by the shattering glass.”
So, if you were worried about 2024 YR4 striking in a few years, you can add the possibility of an unknown asteroid coming out of our blind spot to your list of fears.
Topics: Earth, Space, NASA, Science, Technology
Gerrard Kaonga