Hypnotic animation tracks asteroids hurtling around the solar system
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The solar system is rich in asteroids - there are thousands said to be in the vicinity of Earth and hundreds of thousands more towards Jupiter, many of which reside in the asteroid belt.
In a mesmerising animation, astronomer and gamer Scott Manley from San Francisco has revealed the multitude of these asteroids that have been spotted since 1980.
As the animation progresses, more and more asteroids appear which reflects how our capabilities to find them increased dramatically at the turn of the century.
The animation shows a model of the inner solar system with various objects in orbit.
WHICH ROCK IS WHICH?
An asteroid is a large chunk of rock left over from collisions in the early solar system. Most are located between Mars and Jupiter in the Main Belt.
A comet is a rock covered in ice, methane and other compounds. Their orbits take them much further out of the solar system.
A meteor is what we call a flash of light in the atmosphere when debris burns up.
This debris itself is known as a meteoroid. Most are so small they are vapourised in the atmosphere.
If any of this meteoroid makes it to Earth, it is called a meteorite.
Meteors, meteoroids and meteorites normally originate from asteroids and comets.
At the centre is the sun, and the blue dots in orbit around it are the innermost planets in order: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
Towards the edge of the screen is Jupiter, and between this gas giant and Mars is where the asteroid belt is located.
Over time, astronomers have found more than 600,000 asteroids in the inner solar system.
Of these, about 10,000 are Near-Earth objects (NEOs) and, in turn, almost 1,500 are Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs).
These are ones that are said to potentially pose a threat to Earth soon or in hundreds of years.
According to Nasa, our planet is currently bombarded with more than 100 tonnes of dust and sand-sized particles every day.
This graph from Nasa shows how our capabilities to find asteroids have increased drastically in the 15 years, thanks to new and improved asteroid-hunting telescopes being built on Earth and launched into space. About 10 per cent of these are potentially hazardous but don't pose any immediate threat
Every year, on average, a car-sized asteroid plunges into the atmosphere, burning up before it reaches the surface.
Every 2,000 years, a meteoroid the size of a football field makes it through the atmosphere and hits the ground, causing significant damage.
And it is estimated that once in a few million years an object large enough to threaten civilisation as we know it enters our atmosphere.
This latest animation comes just days after a large asteroid dubbed 2014 HQ124 came within 770,000 miles (1.25 million km) of Earth.
Although there was little to no chance of it hitting Earth, it highlights how vulnerable our planet can be to large rocks drifting through space.
An asteroid (illustration shown) is a large chunk of rock left over from collisions in the early solar system. Most are located between Mars and Jupiter in the Main Belt, but a growing number are being found that are locate closer to Earth or towards the inner solar system
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