A top astronomer responsible for defending the Earth against asteroids has revealed what keeps her up at night — thousands of “city killer” space rocks that remain undetected. Dr Kelly Fast, NASA’s ...
A planetary defense expert working for NASA warned that humanity has no defense against up to 15,000 undetected near-Earth asteroids that could wipe out a city.
On 14 February 2026, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, Kelly Fast presented data on a persistent gap in planetary defense capabilities.
Planetary defense has moved from science fiction to a live engineering problem, and the stakes could not be higher. The central question is no longer whether an asteroid will eventually head our way, ...