there’s no way to stop thousands of city-killing asteroids from striking Earth

[noumoe]

A NASA planetary defense officer, Kelly Fast, warns that up to 15,000 undetected near-Earth asteroids—around 500 feet wide—could devastate cities, causing regional damage. These “city killers” are hard to spot due to their orbit and low reflectivity, with only 40% of the estimated 25,000 known.

“What keeps me up at night is the asteroids we don’t know about,” Fast said at an AAAS meeting. NASA plans to launch the Near-Earth Object Surveyor telescope next year to detect them via thermal signatures.

Her goal: Find asteroids before they find us and develop deflection methods. However, even if detected, there’s no ready defense. The 2022 DART mission proved asteroids can be redirected, but no such craft is on standby.

DART leader Nancy Chabot noted lacking funds for preparedness: “We could be in very good shape. We need to take those steps.”

Meanwhile, asteroid YR4 has a 4% chance of hitting the moon in 2032.

To prevent a lunar crash landing, space defense experts have proposed blowing it up with nukes like something out of the sci-fi thriller “Armageddon.”

https://nypost.com/2026/02/17/science/n ... 1771341616