Washington, Sept 30 (ANI): NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has discovered that there are significantly fewer near-Earth asteroids in the mid-size range than previously thought.
Astronomers now estimate there are roughly 19,500 - not 35,000 - mid-size near-Earth asteroids.
Scientists said this improved understanding of the population might indicate that the hazard to Earth could be somewhat less than previously thought.
However, the majority of these mid-size asteroids remain to be discovered.
The results come from the most accurate census to date of near-Earth asteroids, the space rocks that orbit within 120 million miles (195 million kilometres) of the sun into Earth's orbital vicinity.
The survey project, called NEOWISE, is the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission.
"NEOWISE allowed us to take a look at a more representative slice of the near-Earth asteroid numbers and make better estimates about the whole population," said Amy Mainzer, lead author of the new study and principal investigator for the NEOWISE project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.
The findings also indicate NASA has found more than 90 percent of the largest near-Earth asteroids, meeting a goal agreed to with Congress in 1998.
The study results appeared in the Astrophysical Journal. (ANI)
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