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An asteroid is basically a chunk of rock that has been around since the Solar System<\/a> first took shape, more than four billion years ago.<\/p>\n Most of these objects<\/a> circle the Sun in a broad zone between Mars and Jupiter, known as the asteroid belt. <\/p>\n A smaller group drifts onto routes that swing within about 28 million miles of Earth\u2019s orbit. Those are known as near-Earth asteroids, or NEAs.<\/p>\n What are near-Earth asteroids?<\/p>\n NEAs are not all giant \u201cplanet killers.\u201d Many are only a few yards across, and some stretch for miles, but size isn\u2019t the whole story. <\/p>\n Scientists still keep tabs on these small ones. Even they can cause serious trouble if they hit a populated area. Something only a few hundred feet wide could level a city.<\/p>\n To avoid any surprises, astronomers study each object\u2019s path and how forces like sunlight and gravity<\/a> slowly push it around. With that information, they can figure out where an asteroid is headed years, and even centuries, from now.<\/p>\n Software then checks whether any of those paths come close enough to give even a tiny chance of an impact with Earth, within the next hundred years.<\/p>\n How asteroid hunting began<\/p>\n Interest in finding near-Earth asteroids began as far back as 1898. This is the year in which the very first one was recorded \u2013 Eros.<\/p>\n Through much of the 20th century, discoveries were infrequent since the available telescopes could scan only small sections of the sky. <\/p>\n Things picked up in the 1990s and 2000s. New survey telescopes began covering huge areas each night, and the number of finds shot up. Suddenly, hundreds of new NEAs were being logged every year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe number of discoveries is rising exponentially, from one thousand at the beginning of the century to 15 000 in 2016 and 30 000 in 2022, said Luca Conversi, manager of ESA\u2019s Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre. <\/p>\n \u201cAs the next generation of telescopes enter operation, we expect the number of known NEAs to continue to grow at an even higher pace,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n In November 2025, the total number of identified NEAs passed this 40,000 mark, with around 10,000 of them found in just the last three years.<\/p>\n Teams are watching the sky <\/p>\n The Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre (NEOCC<\/a>), which is part of the European Space Agency\u2019s Planetary Defence Office, sits at the heart of Europe\u2019s effort to understand the risk from NEAs.<\/p>\n When a new object appears in telescope images, the center pulls together all available observations and updates predictions of its future path. Each new data point sharpens the forecast.<\/p>\n Almost 2,000 NEAs have a non-zero chance of impacting Earth<\/a> sometime in the next hundred years. Most of these are very small and pose no significant danger. In addition, heir impact probabilities are typically much lower than one percent.<\/p>\n The largest NEAs, more than about two-thirds of a mile (1 kilometer) across, were easier to spot and many of them were among the first to be found.<\/p>\n Today the main focus is on mid-sized asteroids between about 330 and 980 feet (100 and 300 meters) wide. <\/p>\n These are hard to detect but would cause serious regional damage if they hit. Current models suggest that only about 30 percent of them have been discovered.<\/p>\n New telescopes joining the hunt<\/p>\n \u201cInaugurated this year, the Vera C. Rubin<\/a> Observatory in Chile, while not dedicated exclusively to asteroid surveys, will discover tens of thousands of new NEAs and other asteroids,\u201d stated Conversi. <\/p>\n The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will scan the whole visible sky every few nights, giving astronomers repeated looks at faint moving objects.<\/p>\n ESA\u2019s Flyeye telescopes will bring additional resources. They break the field of view into many smaller \u201ceyes,\u201d allowing each system to cover a broad stretch of sky in one shot. <\/p>\n That design helps spot fast-moving rocks that might streak across the sky between traditional survey images.<\/p>\n Together, these instruments are expected to raise discovery rates even further and help close gaps in current coverage.<\/p>\n Finding dangerous rocks is only half of planetary defense. The other half is figuring out how to nudge one away if it is ever on a true collision course. <\/p>\n ESA\u2019s Hera mission is now in space and en route to the asteroid Dimorphos to study the aftermath of the impact performed by NASA\u2019s DART spacecraft<\/a> in 2022. <\/p>\n Hera will study in detail how the DART impact altered Dimorphos\u2019 structure and trajectory. This will help transform asteroid deflection into a reliable way of protecting Earth.<\/p>\n ESA is also planning the Ramses mission (Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety). Its aim is to rendezvous with the asteroid Apophis, which is a quarter of a mile (375 meters) in diameter.<\/p>\n Ramses will join Apophis on a safe but unusually close flyby of Earth in 2029, which will give scientists a near look at how such a pass influences an asteroid\u2019s surface and motion.<\/p>\n Some of the scariest impact risks come from asteroids that arrive from the direction of the Sun. <\/p>\n In that glare, ground-based optical telescopes on Earth\u2019s dayside hemisphere cannot see them at all. That is one reason the Chelyabinsk event in 2013, when a small asteroid<\/a> exploded over Russia, came with no warning.<\/p>\n Hunting asteroids in infrared light, ESA\u2019s NEOMIR<\/a> (Near-Earth Object Mission in the Infra-Red) is designed to spot these objects from space. <\/p>\n Targeted for launch in the mid-2030s, NEOMIR will orbit between Earth and the Sun and watch for the heat signatures of incoming rocks.<\/p>\n This telescope will close a large blind spot and give advance warning of impact hazards similar to the Chelyabinsk event for the first time.<\/p>\n What this means for life on Earth<\/p>\n Thankfully, none of the known near-Earth asteroids are cause for concern for the foreseeable future. <\/p>\n The growing catalog, along with missions like Hera, Ramses, and NEOMIR, shows that planetary defense has become a serious, organized effort.<\/p>\n What began with the discovery of Eros in 1898 has grown into a global project. Tens of thousands of near-Earth asteroids have now been identified. <\/p>\n Each new addition improves our understanding of the Solar System\u2019s history and strengthens our ability to keep our planet safe.<\/p>\n This article includes information from a press release<\/a> by the European Space Agency.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers have just logged the 40,000th near-Earth asteroid, a major marker in humanity\u2019s effort to keep track of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-283255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Assessing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/near-earth-Asteroid_danger_explained_ESA_1s.webp.webp\")
<\/a>Assessing the threat posed by asteroids or other near-Earth objects (NEO) that come close to the Earth during their orbit around the Sun is a complex process. Credit: ESA. Click image to enlarge.Near-Earth asteroid deflection<\/p>\n![\"This](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/40-000_near-Earth_Asteroids_map-plot_NEOCC_1s.webp.webp\")
<\/a>This observation of near-Earth asteroids was done using the Orbit Visualisation Tool, which can display collections of asteroids and the Keplerian and perturbed orbits of NEOs in a 3D environment of the Solar System. Credit: ESA. Click image to enlarge.Closing the blind spots<\/p>\n