More than a million asteroids have the potential to hit Earth, but in spite of our technology scientists have only discovered one percent of these space rocks.
Near-Earth object detection technology greatly improved around 1998, so objects being detected as of 2004 could have been missed only a decade earlier due to a lack of dedicated Near-Earth sky surveys. As dedicated Near-Earth sky surveys improve, smaller and smaller asteroids are regularly being discovered. The small near-Earth asteroids 2008 TC3 and 2014 AA are the only two asteroids discovered before impacting into Earth. Scientists estimate that several dozen asteroids in the 6 to 12 meter size range fly by Earth at a distance closer than the moon every year, but only a fraction of these are actually detected.[1]
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More than a million asteroids have the potential to hit Earth, but in spite of our technology scientists have only discovered one percent of these space rocks.
Near-Earth object detection technology greatly improved around 1998, so objects being detected as of 2004 could have been missed only a decade earlier due to a lack of dedicated Near-Earth sky surveys. As dedicated Near-Earth sky surveys improve, smaller and smaller asteroids are regularly being discovered. The small near-Earth asteroids 2008 TC3 and 2014 AA are the only two asteroids discovered before impacting into Earth. Scientists estimate that several dozen asteroids in the 6 to 12 meter size range fly by Earth at a distance closer than the moon every year, but only a fraction of these are actually detected.[1]