An asteroid larger than the Statue of Liberty will fly past Earth at 20:20 GMT on Christmas Day, according to data from NASA’s Center for Earth Studies.
The asteroid, named 2014 SD224, will come to 0.02019 astronomical units, or almost 1.9 million miles, from the Earth’s surface.
The 2014 SD224 is 92 to 210 meters (302 to 690 feet) in diameter – meaning it could be more than twice the size of the Statue of Liberty (305 feet) or larger than Salisbury Cathedral (404 feet). .
As the 2014 SD224 flies past Earth, it will travel at a speed of 10 kilometers per second or more than 22,000 miles per hour – about 30 times the speed of sound.
Despite being about eight times farther than the Moon, the asteroid is classified as an object close to Earth (NEO) and is being tracked by the space agency.
The asteroid could be more than twice the size of the Statue of Liberty (305 feet) or Elizabeth Tower (better known as Big Ben) and larger than Salisbury Cathedral (404 feet).
Asteroid 2014 SD224 (also known as 501647) and its trajectory relative to the orbits of the planets in our solar system. The Earth’s orbit is light blue
Although the 2014 SD224 – which can be tracked on the NASA site – is at a distance of 1.9 million miles away, this is relatively close in astronomical terms.
For this reason, the 2014 SD224 is defined by NEO, although it is not expected to cause any damage.
NEOs are an asteroid or comet whose orbit brings it into or through an area between about 91 million and 121 million miles (195 million km) from the Sun, which means it can move to about 30 million miles (50 million km) from Earth’s orbit.
If the object is more than 140 meters wide, it is considered a potentially dangerous object (PHO).
“NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been pushed by the gravitational pull of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the vicinity of Earth,” NASA said.
“Composed largely of water ice with built-in dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system, while most rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.” .
“The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is largely due to their relatively unchanged status in the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.”
According to publicly available NASA data, 24,629 NEOs were discovered on Tuesday.
It is estimated that there are approximately 25,000 objects near the Earth (NEO) larger than 140 meters.
And there are also about 1,000 NEOs larger than 3,280 feet (one kilometer), stressing the need to track these space rocks.
On average, the Earth is hit by a football-sized rock every 5,000 years and an asteroid that kills civilization every million years, according to NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program.
NEOs are an asteroid or comet whose orbit brings it into or through an area about 91 million and 121 million miles (195 million km) from the Sun, which means it can travel about 30 million miles (50 million miles). million km) from Earth’s orbit (stock image)
“Continuously searching for asteroids, we expect to eventually find most asteroids at a hundred meters in time, as each happens to pass by our planet many years or decades before a potential impact,” said Paul Chodas , director of the NASA Center for Near Earth Studies, told Newsweek.
“We have already inventoried over 95% of truly large asteroids (1 kilometer or 0.62 miles in size and larger) and we know that none of them have any chance of having an impact in the next century.”
Last month, an asteroid the size of a London bus was discovered that missed the Earth by only 240 miles (386 km) – Friday the 13th
The space rock, nicknamed the “2020 VT4”, was seen only 15 hours after the closest approach by the latest asteroid impact alert system on Mauna Loa, Hawaii.
If he got much closer, his 16- to 33-foot (5 to 10-meter) body would have burned him in the South Pacific atmosphere.
Its orbit brought it to the same distance from Earth as the International Space Station, making it the closest asteroid to Earth to date.
Astronomers hunt asteroids larger than 450 ft because they can cause “catastrophic damage”
Researchers have discovered most asteroids that are about a kilometer in size, but are now looking for those that are about 140 m long – because they could cause catastrophic damage.
Although no one knows when the next big impact will take place, scientists have found themselves under pressure to predict – and intercept – its arrival.
Illustrated artist’s impression
“Sooner or later we will have … a minor or major impact,” said Rolf Densing, who heads the European Space Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt.
It may not happen in our lives, he said, but “the risk of the Earth being hit in a devastating event one day is very high.”
“For now, we can do a little.”
Source: AFP