Venus is hiding several asteroids that can one day prove fatal for Earth. A study has found that several asteroids moving in tandem with our twin planet around the Sun can smash into our planet if something were to move them out of their path. A small gravitational change could be enough to shift them outwards and crash into Earth.
Scientists at NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), Roscosmos, and other space agencies routinely track near-Earth asteroids that can prove potentially hazardous to our planet. However, all our telescopes fail when it comes to peering towards rocks in a sub-orbital path with Venus.
A team of scientists from São Paolo University, led byValerio Carruba, observed Venus co-orbital asteroids, writing that they know about at least 20 of them. The study published in thejournal Astronomy and Astrophysics states, that these asteroids are in sync with Venus, so they'll never crash into Venus. However, the same can't be said about Earth.
Researchers from Brazil, France, and Italy have concurred that the Sun's glare makes it almost impossible to see these asteroids. Since humans can't observe them, they will never get enough time to deflect any of these space rocks. In fact, they'll have as little as two to four weeks to prepare for an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. That's almost nothing since any attempt to deflect or break apart a dangerous asteroid will require several years of effort.
There are at least three such asteroids that can pose a threat to Earth in the future. Asteroids 2020 SB, 524522, and 2020 CL1 can fall into a trajectory which puts them on the same path as our planet, leading them to crash into the planet. All it'll take is a slight gravitational change to pull them off their track.
The three asteroids are capable of wiping out cities, destroying a major chunk of humanity. According to the researchers, an asteroid nearly 500 feet in diameter would strike with a force equal to hundreds of megatons of TNT. These three asteroids are between 330 and 1,300 feet in diameter. If even one of them hits Earth, the event will release over one million times more energy than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 during World War II.
Asteroids 2020 SB, 524522, and 2020 CL1 have a very small Minimum Orbital Intersection Distance (MOID) -the closest distance between their orbit and Earth's orbit around the Sun. This dramatically increases their chances of colliding with Earth.
How can we prevent asteroids from crashing into Earth?
Scientists say that we might be able to spot the deadly asteroids from the Rubin Observatory in Chile. However, even if we see them, there'll be little time to take any action, only about a few weeks. The only way is to send a probe to Venus and get a close look at the asteroids before they become a danger to Earth.