Earth 1, asteroids 0: The next generation of planetary defense takes shape at JPL
There is a non-zero chance that somewhere in the nearby solar system is a rock that might kill us all.
This stony assassin may well be orbiting the sun at this very moment, careening down a celestial path that could, one day, intersect with ours.
And if that rock is big enough and hits in the right place — boom. Fire and smoke and death and extinction. Homo sapiens goes the way of T. rex.
To save ourselves from a killer asteroid, first we have to find it. A spacecraft now under construction at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory may be our best hope.
The Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor is a $1.4-billion infrared telescope with a single mission: to hunt asteroids and comets that could pose a danger to Earth.
Astronomers have already identified roughly 2,500 asteroids larger than 140 meters that could come worryingly close.
Statistical models suggest that there could be as many as 25,000 such objects in the solar system, in addition to countless smaller asteroids that could also do considerable damage, said Amy Mainzer, a UCLA professor of planetary science who is leading the NEO Surveyor mission for NASA.
'We still don't know everything that's in our own backyard,' Mainzer said. And if we do need to mount a defense against an incoming threat from space, she said, 'it all starts with knowing that there's something there and having enough time to really make an informed plan.'
Asteroids are essentially construction debris left over from the formation of the solar system. A collapsed cloud of gas and dust condensed in places to create planets, including the one we're on right now. It also produced smaller rocks that never achieved planet size or status.
The NEO Surveyor fulfills a 2005 act of Congress ordering NASA to catalog 90% of near-Earth objects larger than 459 feet (140 meters), which is roughly the size at which an asteroid could take out a city, or 'vaporize the L.A. basin,' said Tom Hoffman, JPL's project manager for the mission.
Within the first five years after its planned Sept. 13, 2027, launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., the mission is tasked with identifying at least two-thirds of the estimated 25,000 asteroids larger than that size believed to be circling Earth.
Within its first decade, astronomers expect to have tracked at least 90%, Mainzer said.
Most of what we know about the asteroids in our celestial neighborhood comes from ground-based telescopes. When viewed here on Earth, the most elusive asteroids look like ink spots traveling through a dark sky, Hoffman said.
But those dark objects absorb enough energy from the sun to raise their temperature. Through an infrared telescope, they glow like red Christmas lights.
The telescope's destination is the first Lagrange point, or L1, one of five known places in the solar system where the balanced gravitational forces of the sun and Earth tend to hold objects in place. From a fixed distance of roughly 1 million miles above Earth — five times the distance from here to the moon — it will follow our planet around the sun, taking in an exponentially broader view of the field around Earth's orbit than existing telescopes do.
The more images it captures of a potentially hazardous object, the more accurately astronomers can plot the object's future movements and calculate the risk.
The most famous collision between Earth and one of these objects took place 66 million years ago, when a rock 7.5 miles wide smashed into what is now the Yucatan Peninsula.
The impact incinerated everything in the vicinity, and sparked massive fires.
Toxic clouds of pulverized rock, sulfate aerosols and wildfire soot soon blanketed the planet, blocking all but a tiny fraction of the sun's energy and bringing photosynthesis to a virtual halt for the only known time in history.
Much smaller rocks can still wreak havoc. In 2013, an asteroid approximately 60 feet in diameter entered the atmosphere near the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia.
It exploded before hitting the ground — a common fate for smaller asteroids that can't withstand the compression of entry — and shattered enough windows to send roughly 1,600 people to the hospital with minor injuries.
'Anything bigger than that — it's not just going to be broken glass,' Mainzer said.
Real-life asteroids don't come hurtling toward Earth from the outer reaches of space the way they do in the movies. They tend to orbit elliptical paths around the sun, passing within sight of our telescopes years, decades or even centuries before any potential collision.
Technology has, fortunately, come a long way since the late Cretaceous. The sooner we find these asteroids, the more time we have to figure out the right way to prevent a catastrophe, and the less work it takes to successfully pull that off.
'It all comes down to doing things as early as you can, because then you barely have to do anything,' said Kathryn Kumamoto, head of the planetary defense program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
'If we did want to, say, deflect the asteroid, we only have to nudge it a very little bit if we can get to it very far in advance,' Kumamoto said. 'A change of a millimeter per second over decades will add up to thousands of kilometers, and that can be enough to make the asteroid miss the Earth entirely.'
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, confirmed in 2022 that it's possible to successfully change the trajectory of a near-Earth object when it deliberately crashed a spacecraft into a tiny asteroid 7 million miles away.
But brute force isn't our only option. Other proposals include painting part of the object with a light-colored coating that would redistribute its heat and eventually change its spin and orbit, Mainzer said, or parking a large spacecraft nearby whose gravity would reshape the object's trajectory.
'It all starts with knowing that there's something there and having enough time to really make an informed plan,' Mainzer said.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
NASA's New Data Has Scientists Sounding the Alarm on Climate Extremes
The latest satellite data from NASA is painting a troubling picture of Earth's climate, and it's coming into focus faster than expected. According to new research from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, extreme weather events like floods and droughts are not only becoming more common, but also more intense, longer-lasting, and more destructive. The Guardian reported that data from the past five years show these events doubling in intensity compared to averages between 2003 and 2020. Even researchers behind the study admit they didn't anticipate such a dramatic spike. "We were surprised to find the actual population living in rural areas is much higher than the global data indicates," said lead researcher Dr. Bailing Li, who helped compile the figures using NASA's Grace satellite and dam relocation data across 35 countries. The result: a grim confirmation that climate change is fueling a shift in the planet's water systems, and the consequences are just data, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, reveals that global extremes now show a stronger correlation with rising temperatures than with other climate drivers like El Niño. Events are lasting longer, affecting wider areas, and shifting with less predictability—creating what scientists call "hydroclimatic whiplash," sudden transitions from drought to flood or vice versa. What's most worrying isn't just the scale of the change, but how unprepared most of the world remains. Experts say the current infrastructure, especially in water management, was built for a different era—one with a more stable climate. Christopher Gasson of Global Water Intelligence warned that most water systems are facing extremes from both ends—too much water or too little—and that investment must scale quickly to keep up. Meteorologists and climate experts across the globe echoed the concern. Richard Betts of the UK's Met Office called the data "a stark reminder" that what was once theoretical is now reality. He stressed that most societies have built their systems around past weather patterns, leaving them vulnerable to extremes that now fall outside the historical norm. With the World Meteorological Organization predicting an 80% chance that one of the next five years will be Earth's hottest ever, the window for adapting is narrowing. NASA's findings serve as a warning: the planet is heating up, and the consequences are already surging across every New Data Has Scientists Sounding the Alarm on Climate Extremes first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 22, 2025
Washington Post
3 hours ago
- Washington Post
New marine life database touted as tool for ocean research
Biologists have launched a database of marine animals' body sizes that they say could help preserve biodiversity in Earth's oceans. Why bother measuring animals' body size? In an article in Global Ecology and Biogeography, researchers write that body size affects animals in a multitude of ways, from their behavior and favorite foods to their physiology and habitat choices.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Unsung women behind moon landing celebrated in art
More than a thousand unsung women whose circuits helped man land on the moon have inspired two Kent artists to celebrate the historic moment of 1969. The work is based on the female Navajo weavers who were employed for their perceived dexterity to make microchips in New Mexico in the sixties, which were used by NASA in the Apollo Guidance Computer. Moon Landing is by weaver Margo Selby and composer Helen Caddick is a 16m (52ft) handwoven textile suspended from The Trinity Chapel of Canterbury Cathedral, accompanied by an original score for six strings. The tapestry is described as a celebration of the crossover of mathematical patterns, tone and rhythm found in weaving and music and will remain in the chapel until 31 August. Ms Caddick said she was inspired by a weaving tool to compose music about space exploration. She said: "I had gone to see Margo weave and I noticed that she used a shuttle to move the thread along and that made me start to think about space." She added that when she had saw documentaries or films about the space shuttle, she noticed there was an "indicator light flashing in the cabin". "So so I took the rhythm of that to mirror in the harp part," she said. In turn, Ms Selby translated the musician's work into textile art. The textile artist said: "With these incredible carvings and shapes, to see my contemporary work hanging alongside them is truly thrilling." Some 1,200 indigenous people - mostly women - were employed to work at a Fairchild Semiconductor factory in Shiprock, New Mexico, from 1965, during the United States' race to the moon. The manufacturer was tasked with building complicated microchips for NASA's Apollo Guidance Computer, which was integral to space missions. A contemporary brochure from Fairchild compared the intricate work creating elaborate microchips to weaving the Navajo population's traditional tapestries. However, these women who contributed to the space race were largely overlooked in their time. The Dean of Canterbury Cathedral David Monteith said the chapel was excited to celebrate the work of art. "In life sometimes things can become a bit grey scale but this is such an assault of colour that it gladdens the heart and that's such a gift," he said. Follow BBC Kent on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@ or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250. Mars art installation on display at cathedral Girl, 8, uses dad's ham radio to chat to astronaut Canterbury Cathedral
