Three city-killer asteroids hidden behind Venus could strike Earth with nuclear-level impact, scientists sound alarm

Earth's most dangerous asteroids might not be speeding in from deep space — they could be quietly circling alongside Venus, hidden by the Sun’s glare. A new study reveals that dozens of these stealthy space rocks, known as Venus co-orbitals, are lurking in a solar blind spot. Alarmingly, three of them are large enough to destroy cities and are moving on unstable orbits that could bring them dangerously close to Earth.

An international team of researchers from Brazil, France, and Italy has discovered several asteroids shadowing Venus in its orbit around the Sun. Hidden in the Sun’s blinding glare, these Venus co-orbitals are nearly impossible to detect from Earth. Among them, three — 2020 SB, 524522, and 2020 CL1 — stand out for their potential threat.

Unlike typical near-Earth objects, these asteroids don’t follow stable trajectories. Even a small gravitational nudge could shift them toward Earth. Measuring between 330 and 1,300 feet in diameter, each one carries enough mass to wipe out an entire city, unleash towering tsunamis, and create a crater over two miles wide. The energy released on impact could be more than a million times that of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb.

Currently, the Rubin Observatory in Chile is the best hope for early detection, but it might offer only two to four weeks’ notice. “Twenty co-orbital asteroids of Venus are currently known,” the researchers noted in *Astronomy and Astrophysics*. “Co-orbital status protects these asteroids from close approaches to Venus, but it does not protect them from encountering Earth.”

Their synchronised orbit with Venus means they could intersect Earth’s path at any time. Of particular concern is their Minimal Orbital Intersection Distance (MOID) — the shortest gap between their orbit and Earth’s — which is alarmingly small, less than 0.0005 astronomical units. That’s even closer than the Moon.

To get a clearer picture of these hidden threats, scientists are calling for a dedicated space probe mission to Venus. Such a mission could help detect and track these “invisible” asteroids before it’s too late.