NASA Scientist Confirms That There Is Nothing Humans Can Do To Protect Against a City-Killing Asteroid

If you've ever watched films like Armageddon or Deep Impact, you may already be familiar with the concept of a city-killer asteroid. These oft-fictionalized masses head towards civilization with enough size and speed to wreak havoc on the region, not only by leveling anything within miles of its landing point, but also stirring up enough dust and debris to change the planet's climate.

These fictional figures are often met with a team of well-meaning heroes who hope to save the day.

However, experts say that fact isn't exactly as uplifting as fiction. That's because a real-life city-killer asteroid may be able to withstand just about anything that humanity was able to throw at it... yes, even Bruce Willis in his prime.

In fact, a NASA planetary scientist has admitted exactly what it would take to stop a city-killer asteroid, where the solar system's most likely culprits are currently located, and why the answers to these questions keep her up at night.

The woman tasked with keeping track of near-Earth objects with enough power to destroy our planet says that she doesn't know where some of Earth's most dangerous asteroids are located. She made the confession while speaking to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where she said NASA has a good idea of where the really big planet-killing asteroids are, but virtually no clue where the smaller ones are.

According to the Sun, she says there are about 25,000 of them out there.

Kelly Fast revealed that NASA is about "40 percent" of the way through documenting and tracking those asteroids, but it's not a fast or easy process. “It takes time to find them, even with the best telescopes," she explained during her presentation.

Even when they find these asteroids, there isn't too much the experts can do about them. According to a planetary scientist involved in testing NASA's asteroid redirection capabilities who spoke with Unilad, we just don't have the tools we need.

Nancy Chabot says that she was part of the Johns Hopkins University's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which changed the direction of an asteroid after it was launched towards it at a stunning 14,000 miles per hour. And while Chabot said that the mission was successful, and they were able to altern the asteroid's path using DART, they don't yet have enough spacecraft capable of performing the same mission.

And that's something she says keeps her up at night.

The asteroids that earn city-killer status all have some similar properties in common, according to Live Science, which includes being wider than 460 feet.

However, while these asteroids are scary sounding (as are their impacts on Earth), experts warn that there aren't likely any headed on a collision course with us.

Even the 2024 YR4 which was once believed to have a 2.3 percent chance of colliding with Earth has been downgraded to nearly a zero percent chance, highlighting how rarely any of the estimated 25,000 asteroids come close enough to actually hit our planet.