Asteroids hidden by the Sun’s glare could be headed for Earth, astronomers warn

EARTH has loads of telescopes looking out into space for deadly asteroids but some may have found a way to sneak up on us.

Astronomers say the potentially hazardous rocky objects are hiding within the Sun‘s glare.

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Most of our current tech is looking outward beyond the solar system, even the new James Webb telescope.

That’s because it’s just too bright to see anything, but it’s created a bit of a blind spot.

Recent twilight telescope surveys have confronted the issue to get an idea of what we might be missing.

The research reveals previously undiscovered near-Earth objects, including asteroids.

While the chance of an asteroid hitting Earth is slim, it’s not impossible and leaving them undetected can have deadly results.

“Asteroid surveys generally operate at night, mostly finding objects beyond Earth’s orbit,” Professor Scott Shepard warned in the Science journal.

“This creates a blind spot because many near-Earth objects (NEOs) could be lurking in the sunlight interior to Earth’s orbit.

“New telescopic surveys are braving the Sun’s glare and searching for asteroids toward the Sun during twilight.

“These surveys have found many previously undiscovered asteroids interior to Earth.”

Among them is the first asteroid with an orbit interior to Venus.

And there’s another with the shortest-known orbital period around the Sun.

These were both found in the last two years.

So we should expect to hear about a lot more asteroids coming our way in future.

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