The news: Breathe a sigh of relief—no asteroid larger than a kilometer is going to hit the Earth in the next 1,000 years, a new study has found.
How they did it: A team of researchers modeled when asteroids cataloged by NASA were expected to come near Earth in their orbit, before pushing those estimates up to 1,000 years into the future. By identifying “the fraction of the orbit that can bring the object close to Earth,” the team was able to model impact risks much farther out than has been possible with other methods.
However… Smaller asteroids, which are much more plentiful, can still cause plenty of damage. That’s why it’s still important to keep an eye on anything that could hurtle towards us from outer space. Read the full story.