The universe is full of things that can kill us, but the most unsettling threats are the ones we can’t see. Astronomers say there may be hundreds of asteroids hiding near Venus that are all but invisible from Earth—objects big enough to cause city-level destruction if they ever stray into our path.
A new study led by Valerio Carruba of São Paulo State University warns that these Venus “co-orbital” asteroids are practically blind spots. “Our study shows that there’s a population of potentially dangerous asteroids that we can’t detect with current telescopes,” Carruba explained in a release. These rocks orbit the Sun on the same path as Venus, sometimes ahead of the planet, sometimes behind, and occasionally cutting across its track in tangled motions.
So far, astronomers have identified about 20 of these bodies, but computer models suggest they could represent only a small fraction of the true population. Most are chaotic in their movements, and their orbits can only be reliably predicted for about 150 years. Beyond that, though, they become unpredictable, morphing into new patterns that could send them toward Earth.
Astronomers Say “Invisible” Asteroids Near Venus Could Devastate Earth
The math behind their potential impact is sobering. Carruba notes that an asteroid around 300 meters wide could create a crater several kilometers across and unleash energy on the order of hundreds of megatons. “An impact in a densely populated area would cause large-scale devastation,” he said.
The problem is visibility. Because these asteroids sit inside Earth’s orbit, near the glare of the Sun, they’re almost impossible to pick out with ground-based telescopes. Even the Vera Rubin Observatory, expected to revolutionize sky surveys when it comes online, would only have narrow time windows when such objects might be spotted at twilight.
That blind spot has researchers pushing for more ambitious approaches. One solution would be a space-based observatory near Venus itself, where the asteroids could be tracked without the Sun’s interference. NASA’s upcoming NEO Surveyor mission is designed to look for precisely these kinds of hidden threats in the inner Solar System.
For now, the best we can do is acknowledge the hole in our defenses. We know these asteroids exist, we know some are big enough to matter, and we know we can barely see them. In the long list of things the cosmos might throw at us, that combination feels particularly unfair.
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