The largest "potentially hazardous" asteroid in eight years, a one-mile-wide space rock, has been detected by a team of National Science Foundation researchers.
The New York Times reports that the asteroid dubbed 2022 AP7 is not likely to get close enough to endanger humans.
If AP7 made an impact, it would be a disaster.
Scott Sheppard is an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science and co-author of a paper published in The Astronomical Journal last month. It would cause global destruction if this one hit the Earth. It would be a terrible thing for life.
The space rock is one of three objects that were hidden from us by the Sun's glare.
The fact that it wouldn't burn up in the Earth's atmosphere is one of the reasons it's so threatening.
It is estimated that less than half of the space rocks like it have been found.
NASA crashed DART into a smaller asteroid in order to demonstrate that a killer asteroid on a collision course with our planet could be steered away from us.
We need to detect them before they're too late.
There is a asteroid that poses a risk to Earth.
There is more on asteroids.
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