Near-Earth asteroids

Near-Earth asteroids are asteroids that come close to the Earth's orbit around the sun. They travel in a wide variety of orbit shapes, but they can come close enough to Earth to come into our atmosphere. Some of these asteroids can be seen with the naked eye, while some are so small they only appear like a bright star in the sky. When an asteroid comes close enough to Earth, astronomers track it with powerful telescopes and space-based cameras to help better understand and predict where it is going. All of this helps us know if the asteroid could ever come close enough to Earth to cause harm, like a big meteor strike.