Killer asteroids million times mightier than the Hiroshima bombings are moving towards Earth, warn scientists
Image credits: Canva
Asteroids with more energy than the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima could hit Earth soon, warn scientists
While we keep on reading about asteroids moving too close to Earth and possibly colliding with the planet, this time the risk seems truly too high.
According to a new study, three city-killing asteroids that have been hiding behind Venus, our closest neighbour in the solar system, could be moving towards Earth with a devastating impact.
Researchers from Brazil, France and Italy have found that numerous asteroids in sync with Venus' orbit are difficult to spot as they hide behind the sun's powerful glare. Out of these, three asteroids in particular, 2020 SB, 524522 and 2020 CL1 have orbits that bring them dangerously close to Earth.
Should humans be scared?
Image credits: Canva
In this case, it seems we should. Firstly, these space rocks don't follow stable paths and any kind of gravitational change could shift their course and make them collide with the planet's surface.
These asteroids have a diameter between 330 and 1,300 feet making each one capable of hitting entire cities and setting off humongous fire and tsunamis.
If one of them were to hit a city, it could make a crater over two miles wide and release energy that is over one million times more than the nuclear bombing in Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.
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Researchers noted that the Rubin Observatory in Chile could spot these deadly asteroids approaching from the blind spot near Venus, but the time frame to be able to do so would be extremely short, possibly only two to four weeks.
What are these asteroids?
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The international team, led by Valerio Carruba of São Paolo University focused on the Venus co-orbital asteroids, which are asteroids that share Venus' orbit around the Sun.
'Twenty co-orbital asteroids of Venus are currently known,' wrote the authors in the report to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
'Co-orbital status protects these asteroids from close approaches to Venus, but it does not protect them from encountering Earth,' they explained.
These asteroids move in a synced orbit with Venus around the Sun. However, due to their unpredictable path, they could cross Earth's track around the Sun anytime and if they reach a point at the same time as our planet, they could crash into us.
The above-mentioned three asteroids are primarily more concerning as they have very little Minimal Orbital Intersection Distance (MOID), the closest distance between their and Earth's orbit around the Sun. This small MOID means their chances of colliding with Earth are more. They are even closer to Earth than the Moon, with MOIDs of less than 0.0005 astronomical units (AU).
Since the telescopes on Earth can not see in all directions in space, scientists suggest sending a dedicated space probe towards Venus that could help fully map the 'still invisible' hazardous asteroids hiding in Earth's blind spot.
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