Missions in recent years have seen space officials launch a spacecraft into an asteroid to nudge it enough to change its orbit, a tactic Earth could do if an asteroid to make a direct hit.
While its discovery involved more than one fumbling astronomer, the asteroid 2024 Y24 has been in the headlines for its high chance of impact.
While rock being an asteroid – a metallic rock that orbits the Sun – is the prevailing theory, some scientists suggest it was a comet, dirty snowballs thrown from the outskirts of our star system.
While we all know the time an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, it was only a century ago that we saw the largest space-related explosion in human history.
‘After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the Earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it,’ one local, S Semenov, later told researchers.
