Over 1400 asteroids could cause devastation on Earth at any second, but scientists don't see it happening within the next hundred years.
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) have been pushed by the gravitational pulls of other space objects into Earth's "neighborhood," NASA's Near Earth Object program reported.
The objects are threateningly close to Earth, meaning they have an Earth Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance of at least 0.05 AU and an absolute magnitude of 22.0.
Asteroids smaller than 500 feet in diameter are not considered PHAs because they don't have the ability to cause extreme damage.
Objects that are close, but can't reach Earth, or can't cause significant damage are called Near Earth Objects (NEOs).
PHAs have the "potential" to impact Earth, but this doesn't necessarily mean they will. Scientists don't believe there are any legitimate threats over the next century. The scientists continute to study the objects in hopes of calculating "future approaches and impact probabilities."
Scientists discover new neighboring asteroids often. NASA recently spotted the ten-thousandth known NEO in June of this year.
"Finding 10,000 near-Earth objects is a significant milestone," Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington, said. "But there are at least 10 times that many more to be found before we can be assured we will have found any and all that could impact and do significant harm to the citizens of Earth."
Scientists could potentially "nuke" an asteroid if it was a great threat to Earth, space.com reported.
A spacecraft would deliver a nuclear warhead to obliterate the threatening asteroid.
The spacecraft would break away from the warhead and slam into the asteroid, forming a crater. The warhead would then explode within the crater, in order to cause the most damage.
NASA is currently funding a "prominent asteroid defense."
An online program called "Asteroid Zoo" could allow people to search for Near Earth Objects right from their living rooms, a press release reported.
