The various telescopes on Earth and on satellites orbiting the Earth have discovered more than 20,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs), which could someday in future hit our planet. But when it comes to discovering asteroids roaming completely within Earth's orbit, our record is very poor. So far, we have only discovered 25 such asteroids. The reason behind it is that the glare of the Sun stops modern telescopes from fully gazing around the sky to find out asteroids that can be lethal to our planet. A study has recently discovered one such space rock and by its claims, it is the largest potentially hazardous asteroid to be discovered in the last eight years with a width of 1.5 kilometers (4921-foot asteroid, approximately). And what's concerning is that it can strike the Earth one day.

The study has been published in The Astronomical Journal and has used the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile to find this scary space rock. The asteroid has been named 2022 AP7. The concern with this particular asteroid is that compared to other such celestial bodies, its orbit is entirely within Earth's orbiting space, and due to how it is placed, it can someday cross paths with our planet. And the bigger fear is that there can be more of the same.

“Our twilight survey is scouring the area within the orbits of Earth and Venus for asteroids. So far we have found two large near-Earth asteroids that are about 1 kilometer across, a size that we call planet killers,” said Scott S. Sheppard, an astronomer and the lead author of the study in a statement. “There are likely only a few NEAs with similar sizes left to find, and these large undiscovered asteroids