We often think of the Earth as being surrounded by a vast darkness of space, with the moon and nearby planets as its closest neighbours.
However, a probe by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the Earth's surrounding areas revealed that there are hundreds of other objects near our planet, including eight potentially hazardous asteroids that pose a serious threat to our planet.
In its second year of gathering data about the things circling our planet, the space agency's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission found 72 new discoveries. A total of 439 near-Earth objects have already been detected since the mission started in 2013.
Of this tally, eight asteroids were identified to have the possibility of approaching or even hitting our planet one day, based on their size and how closely their orbits approach the Earth.
The NASA's Near Earth Object programme has nevertheless assured that these big space rocks are unlikely to hit our planet any time soon.
It must be noted, however, that even smaller space rocks can slip by undetected and cause serious damage on Earth, like the meteor that injured hundreds of people and destroyed property in Chelyabinsk city in Russia in February 2013.
The space agency nevertheless said a nuclear response could save the Earth should one of these massive asteroids threaten to collide with our planet in the future.
"Unless there are a few decades of warning time, hazardous asteroids larger than a few hundred meters in diameter will require enormous energies to deflect or fragment. In the rare case of a large threatening asteroid, nuclear explosions that could push or fragment the object might provide a sufficient response," the NASA's Asteroid and Comet Watch page stated, as quoted by CNN.
James Bauer, the mission's deputy principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, meanwhile explained that it is good that we are aware of things lurking around the Earth through the help of the NEOWISE mission.
"By studying the distribution of lighter- and darker-coloured material, NEOWISE data give us a better understanding of the origins of the NEOs, originating from either different parts of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or the icier comet populations," Bauer said in a statement posted on the NASA website.
