The Last Orbit

A killer asteroid. A failed first strike. One crew’s last chance to save the world. From the author behind The Social Network and 21 comes an edge-of-your-seat, cinematic thriller built on real science, about a threat that is already out there.

We’ll see it coming. That won’t save us.

Right now, a hundred thousand “City Killer” asteroids are hurtling through our solar system. We’ve found fewer than a third. The rest are out there, beyond our view, tracing silent orbits around the sun.

In December 2024, astronomers spotted one of them. Within weeks, asteroid 2024 YR4 had a 3.1 percent chance of striking Earth. Then it disappeared behind the sun.

In The Last Orbit, it comes back, threading a gravitational keyhole that bends its path straight toward Earth. The world’s space agencies have six months to stop it.

Their first attempt fails.

Now Commander Rachel Kane must lead her crew farther from Earth than anyone has ever traveled, toward a rock no one fully understands. Stopping it will take a miracle, and breaking every rule they were trained to follow. Even if they succeed, will they ever make it home?

Drawing on unprecedented access to the scientists, technology, and astronauts of planetary defense, The Last Orbit is a pulse-pounding thriller with the whole world watching the sky. Because it’s not a question of if one of these rocks will find us. It’s a question of when.