A 'Doomsday Swarm' Wanders Near Earth – 14 Dangerous Asteroids.

Not far from Earth lies a stream of cosmic debris, which may allegedly contain up to 14 large asteroids. A recent study of the Taurid swarm, the so-called "Doomsday asteroid swarm," revealed that their number is less than expected.

Fortunately, we found that most likely the swarm may contain only nine to fourteen asteroids of this large size, said Quanzhi Ye, a research associate at the Department of Astronomy of the University of Maryland, who led the project.

Astronomers emphasize the importance of increasing attention and improving technologies for detecting such threats. For researching the presence of large cosmic objects in the Taurid swarm, they used the Zwicky Transient Facility telescope, located at the Palomar Observatory in California.

We took advantage of the rare opportunity when this asteroid swarm approached Earth, which allowed us to search more effectively for objects that could threaten our planet. Our findings show that the risk of collision with a large asteroid from the Taurid swarm is much lower than we thought, which is excellent news for planetary defense - emphasize the astronomers.

The Taurid swarm is considered the biggest threat to planetary safety, as each year Earth passes through this massive stream of material in the Solar System. The swarm likely contains fragments of an asteroid or comet that broke apart about 20-30 thousand years ago. Some of these fragments may be large cosmic objects.

According to our findings, the parent object that initially created the swarm was probably closer to 10 kilometers in diameter, rather than a massive 100-kilometer object. Although we still need to be vigilant about asteroid collisions, we likely can sleep easier knowing these results - the scientists stated.

It is also reported that on October 13, a bright comet ATLAS, the brightest in the last 13 years, was seen in the sky over Ukraine. In addition, it was previously known about the flyby of the asteroid 2024 ON near Earth without any threat to our planet.

Scientists also found that from the end of September to November, an asteroid will approach Earth, which will be a temporary satellite of our planet.