NASA’S asteroid trackers keep a watchful eye on the skies above Earth but one scientist has warned the space agency has “no insight” into the behaviour of at least 20,000 asteroids.
Knowing how these so-called Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) behave could one day save our planet from a devastating impact. But a peculiar cosmic phenomenon known as the Yarkovsky effect renders some of NASA’s asteroid tracking efforts futile. Thanks to the Yarkovsky effect, NASA scientist Steve Chesley said there are thousands of asteroids that could potentially change their orbit.
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