Devastating 'Invisible Asteroids' Could Strike The Earth At Any Moment

Ten years ago, the biggest asteroid to strike the Earth in over 100 years slammed into Western Russia, creating a shockwave equal to 35 atomic bombs and injuring 1,600 people. The rock that struck was over 60-feet wide, yet no one saw it coming because it was hidden by the glare of the sun. Unfortunately, it isn't the only one.

One expert told The Daily Mail that an "unknown" number of meteors could be hurtling towards the planet undetected and that asteroids like the one that impacted Russia will hit every 50 to 100 years. Thankfully, new systems are being put in place to help with early detection, which could save millions of lives. The European Space Agency plans to launch the Near Earth Object Mission in the Infrared, or NEOMIR, an orbiting observatory that can use infrared to monitor asteroids 65 feet or larger that otherwise would be hidden by sunlight.

While there is a chance a big rock can still go unnoticed until it's too late, scientists think that is unlikely since nearly all nearby asteroids larger than half-a-mile in width have been identified. However, the more the space by the sun is examined, the more asteroids are discovered. Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science recently wrote in the journal Science about how most telescopes look away from the sun to avoid its glare, but now technology has allowed them to look more towards the sun, and they are finding lots of previously-unseen asteroids near the planet.

To help keep an eye on everything, in 2026, NASA will send out the Near-Earth Object Surveyor, a space telescope that can help detect and monitor asteroids. This will be especially important since, per experts, asteroids can also "sneak up" on the planet because Earth's rotation makes them seem like they are barely moving. That happened just a few years ago, when a 328-foot wide rock came within 44,000 miles of the planet - the closest one has come since 1908 - and it was only spotted 24 hours before its closest approach.

As detection efforts grow, so do plans for worst-case scenarios. If an asteroid looks like it will hit, NASA is taking measures for what to do. In September, they intentionally crashed a spacecraft onto an asteroid to see if the impact could affect its orbit. Thankfully, it worked.