The chances of a wayward asteroid colliding worth seem to be more a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.
In fact, dozens of tiny fragments bombard our planet all the time and burn up in our atmosphere.
Once a year or so, a car-sized space rock will hit Earth and create an impressive fireball which is occasionally caught on camera.
Plenty of experts at space agencies and organizations around the world are constantly tracking asteroids out in the void of space to try and get an idea of any potentially hazardous ones coming our way.
Unfortunately, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has revealed that it lost track of more than 900 near-Earth asteroids following its last official count.
The US-based organization said that between 2013 and 2016 its Minor Planet Center (MPC) conducted an extensive search of objects orbiting around space.
They found a total of 17.030 potential near-Earth asteroids.
It’s the MPC that is funded by NASA and is tasked with identifying, tracking and working out the orbits of minor planets, asteroids, comets and other irregular ‘natural satellites’.
Worryingly, the team labeled 11% of that total (almost 1.900) as ‘initially unconfirmed’ – meaning their exact location was not known.
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