Astronomers hunting for asteroids that could vaporise a city or sterilise Earth's surface spotted a new threat.
Uncharted space rocks can be seen by their glinting sunlight. Some asteroids are hidden by the sun's glare, like embers in front of a thermonuclear bonfire.
In the hope of finding asteroids cloaked by excessive sunlight, astronomers co-opted a camera designed to study dark matter.
Researchers announced Monday the discovery of three new light-drowned projectiles, based on a September survey.
One of them, 2022 AP7, is about a mile long, and its orbit crosses Earth's path around the sun, coming as close as 4.4 million miles to Earth
2022 AP7 is "the largest potentially hazardous asteroid found in the last eight years or so," an astronomer said.