Astronomers have discovered more than 30,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEA) in the solar system, which are rocky bodies that revolve around the sun on a path that brings it close to Earth’s orbit.
According to the European Space Agency, there are now a total of 3,039 near-Earth asteroids known to science, and the number is rapidly rising. The agency claims that 1,425 of these asteroids can impact our planet, so they are under the watchful eye of a network of telescopes.
“The good news is that more than half of the near-Earth asteroids known today have been discovered in the past six years, demonstrating how much better our asteroid view has,” said Richard Moisel, head of the agency’s Planetary Defense Division.
