This asteroid was discovered only very recently, 10 days in fact, and is going to be the closest approach by anything that size since 2006! It is moving at over 106,000 km/h, which is nearly 2 times more faster than the Voyager 1 spacecraft! It is estimated to be 280-620 meters in diameter.
A NASA report states that this asteroid is going to be the closest approach by an asteroid of such size till August 2027 (provided no new asteroids are discovered within the time frame that come closer!), when 1999 AN10 passes closer than 1 lunar distance. NASA also adds that this asteroid has a really eccentric orbit and that is the reason why it was discovered so late.
There are 13251 near Earth-objects that have been discovered and 1635 are stated as potentially hazardous. To cap it all off, 877 of the 13251 known objects are more than 1 km in diameter! Nonetheless, NASA tells us to stop worrying as there is only a 0.01 percent chance that one of these asteroids will actually strike the Earth in the next hundred years.
Asteroid strikes are really dangerous, because they cause devastation to areas far far away from the place that they have hit. Huge asteroids release vast quantities of dust into the atmosphere, which when significantly collects, blocks sunlight, resulting in a long winter for the animals in the ground. According to scientists, this, along with a combination of volcanic activity, was why the dinosaurs went extinct.
This is why there is a huge movement to find such hazardous objects before they strike the Earth. There are certain procedures one can follow to steer an asteroid that’s hitting safely away from the Earth. It involves a spacecraft with an ion drive, which when flown near the asteroid, slightly changes the orbit of the asteroid, because the spacecraft has gravity as well.
A nuclear bomb has also been touted, but it would not be very efficient, because the asteroid would have to be disintegrated for it to have any effect. Because there is nothing in space to “push against”, not much course correction can be achieved with the help of a nuclear bomb. Also, asteroids move at incredible speeds and as such, it becomes very difficult to detonate bombs at exactly the ideal time.
Information and picture courtesy of ScienceAlert.
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