Three 'invisible' city-killer asteroids could strike earth within weeks, scientists warn- here's all about them
Three huge asteroids could hit Earth, and a group of astronomers is sounding the alarm. They could cause destruction on a scale never seen before. These asteroids are almost invisible because of the sun's glare.
Scientists say that three asteroids are orbiting Venus and could hit Earth in a matter of weeks because their paths are unstable. The three
city-killer asteroids
that Venus is hiding could cause catastrophic damage before we can respond, as per a report by The NY Post.
The authors of the arockcalyptic study, which was published in the journal "Astronomy & Astrophysics," cautioned that there are currently 20 co-orbital asteroids of Venus.
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What does the study reveal?
According to the Daily Mail, at least three of the asteroids that orbit the sun in tandem with our twin planet, 2020 SB, 524522, and 2020 CL1, have unstable orbits that bring them dangerously close to Earth, according to the international research team headed by Valerio Carruba of São Paulo University in Brazil.
According to the study, the asteroids might be put on a collision course with Earth if this unstable trajectory is only marginally altered by a slight change in gravity or another force.
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How much damage could they really cause?
A collision with one of these intergalactic gravelstones would be bad. They could release energy millions of times stronger than the Hiroshima bomb and would produce a crater more than two miles in diameter
With diameters ranging from 330 to 1,300 feet, asteroids 2020 SB, 524522, and 2020 CL1 have the potential to completely destroy cities and trigger devastating fires and tsunamis, according to the Daily Mail.
According to the Daily Galaxy, the researchers cautioned that while co-orbital status shields these asteroids from near-close encounters with Venus, it does not shield them from coming into contact with Earth.
By simulating a variety of potential outcomes over 36,000 years using imitation space rocks, Carruba & Co. arrived at this conclusion.
They discovered that a significant population of low-eccentricity asteroids, which were previously believed to be harmless, could be driven toward Earth by gravitational shifts and other factors.
Why are these asteroids so hard to detect?
The orbits of the cosmic rocks make them nearly invisible to Earthly detection equipment, which exacerbates the situation.
The sun's glare acts as a cosmic cloaking device, preventing the telescopes from detecting rocks in a suborbital path with Venus, even though NASA and other space agencies regularly track potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroids, according to WION.
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What can be done to stop them?
The Chilean Rubin Observatory would only have two to four weeks to detect deadly asteroids because of this interstellar blind spot, which would leave us little time if they were headed straight for collision.
It typically takes years to plan a mission to engineer something that could deflect a killer space rock.
The authors concluded that "Low-e Venus co-orbitals pose a unique challenge because of the difficulties in detecting and following these objects from Earth."
The authors stated that they thought that the only way to map and find all of the still "invisible" PHAs (
potentially hazardous asteroids
) among Venus' co-orbital asteroids would be to conduct a focused observational campaign from a space-based mission close to the planet.
FAQs
Will these asteroids actually hit Earth soon?
Yes, scientists believe three Venus-orbiting asteroids could strike Earth in weeks due to their unstable orbits.
Why don't we see them coming?
The sun's glare obscures them from Earth-based telescopes, making early detection difficult.
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