The risk of a ‘devastating’ asteroid strike is ‘very high’ - and we’re not prepared, scientists warn

The good news is that scientists have found most of the asteroids which are miles wide – and which could cause a civilisation-ending explosion similar to the one which killed the dinosaurs.

But the bad news is that there’s a lot of slightly smaller asteroids – sized around 400ft – which we haven’t found, an expert has warned.

And those could still cause ‘devastating’ impact, a European scientist has warned – saying that we currently have no defences which can stop such a rock.

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‘Sooner or later we will get… a minor or major impact,’ said Rolf Densing, who heads the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, ahead of International Asteroid Day on Friday.

It may not happen in our lifetime, he said, but ‘the risk that Earth will get hit in a devastating event one day is very high.’

For now, there is little we can do.

‘We are not ready to defend ourselves’ against an Earth-bound object, said Densing. ‘We have no active planetary defense measures.’

Hitherto relegated to the realms of science fiction, tactics could include nuking an incoming asteroid, using lasers to vaporize it, sending a space ‘tractor’ to drag it off course, or bumping it into a new direction.