Rock-a-bye, baby.<\/p>\n
With scientists warning that Earth could be susceptible to thousands of undetected asteroids, Jeff Bezos\u2019 space company Blue Origin is developing a planetary defense program that could help protect us against a rock-alypse.<\/p>\n
There are reportedly 15,000 undetected city-killer asteroids hovering within Earth\u2019s proximity. Paopano \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n
Planned in collaboration with NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Lab, the Near-Earth Objects (NEO) Hunter mission concept would trial \u201cmultiple asteroid-deflection techniques,\u201d per an X post by the firm.<\/a><\/p>\n They would accomplish this using Blue Ring<\/a>, the under-development spacecraft platform that debuted aboard the maiden flight of the firm\u2019s 300-foot New Glenn rocket in early 2025. <\/p>\n Asteroids could be deflected using a beam or via ramming with a spacecraft. Matthieu \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n This veritable Swiss Army Knife of space infrastructure would be capable of hosting, refueling and transporting spacecraft for missions for the ambitious mission.<\/p>\n First, small satellites would be dispatched to conduct reconnaissance of any potentially Earth-bound projectiles, analyzing stats such as mass, so space defense experts can decide how to best handle the threat, Futurism reported.<\/a><\/p>\n As for elimination, Blue Origin proposed deflecting the object using a concentrated ray of particles, dubbed ion beam-deflecting or \u201crobust kinetic disruption,\u201d in which they attempt to ram the target off course.<\/p>\n With the latter, they appeared to be taking a leaf from the 2022 Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) experiment, in which NASA flew a spacecraft into\u00a0the mini moon Dimorphos at 14,000 miles per hour.<\/p>\n While this ostensibly proved that asteroids could be deflected, it also caused the rock to eject some massive boulders that had the potential to hurtle toward Earth like intergalactic shrapnel, a July 2025 study found.<\/a><\/p>\n CEO Jeff Bezos speaks onstage at Blue Origin in Cape Canaveral, Florida, last month. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear how Blue Origin would account for those potential side effects; however, developing ironclad planetary defense systems could prove vital, given the up to 15,000 undetected asteroids orbiting close to home.<\/p>\n During the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) last month, NASA planetary defense officer Kelly warned that the space rocks are particularly insidious because they\u2019re small enough to avoid detection but large enough to take out a city.<\/a><\/p>\n According to Fast, there are around 25,000 of these NEOs passing within our planet\u2019s vicinity \u2014 and we only know the location of around 40%.<\/p>\n NASA is currently developing its Near-Earth Object Surveyor mission, the first-ever space telescope specifically designed to detect potentially hazardous asteroids and comets, which it tracks using infrared sensors that can pick up objects that don\u2019t reflect much visible light.<\/p>\n We may have to develop a rock-stopping system sooner than we\u2019d hoped. <\/p>\n