NASA warns Earth left vulnerable as asteroid protection is ‘NOWHERE NEAR’ what we need

NASA has warned the Earth has been left vulnerable as protection levels against asteroids hitting us are “nowhere near what we need”.

The space agency has established a Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) which is working on ways to protect the world from asteroids.

However, from analysing its Fireball and Bolide Reports system, NASA still has no idea as to where is the most likely place that an asteroid will hit Earth, which leaves us vulnerable.

Without a discernible pattern of where asteroids hit, NASA and other space agencies around the globe have little way of preparing.

However, William Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has warned that there is almost a third of a chance that it could hit land, which could have catastrophic repercussions.

He told Inverse: "Just over 70 per cent of Earth's surface is ocean, which means about 70 per cent of the impactors will land in water.”

He added that there is “no pattern discernible, as you can see from this plot released by NASA.

"Looks pretty random.”

He added that the world is collectively lacking in surveillance of potentially hazardous asteroids.

Mr Cooke continued: "We are just now beginning to establish networks that don't rely on human feedback to extract information about fireballs.”

However, he warned that “coverage is nowhere near what we need.”

The revelation that there is insufficient protection for us against asteroids comes weeks after the organisers of Asteroid Day warned that not enough is being done.

Mark Boslough, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories and one of the founders of Asteroid Day, said: "An event like Chelyabinsk happens about once every 50 years, and we don't have a system designed to discover and track these things.”

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