Several space scientists believe that earth will be one day hit by a doomsday asteroid, and such an event will cause devastation on a global scale. In order to combat such a scenario, NASA, the United States space agency in collaboration with other agencies like ESA is building a planetary defense weapon to deflect these space bodies from its collision course. Now, NASA's near-earth object monitoring system has tracked an asteroid that will skim earth on September 26, 2019.
Scientists have named this rogue body, 'Asteroid 2019 QY3', and experts speculate that this asteroid will make its close approach during the morning hours of Thursday. NASA revealed that this asteroid will be barrelling towards earth at a breathtaking speed of 33,768 kilometers per hour.
NASA also added that the object measures 322 feet in diameter, and it means that this asteroid just three feet shorter than Big Ben's clock tower in London.
However, NASA believes that the chances of Asteroid 2019 QY3 hitting the earth are pretty narrow. At its closest approach, the distance between the earth and this asteroid will be 0.01455 astronomical units. It should be noted that one astronomical unit is the distance between the earth and the sun which is actually 93 million miles.
To make things clearer, Asteroid 2019 QY3 will miss the planet by a margin of 2.17 million kilometers.
Despite NASA's stringent efforts to combat devastating threats from space, SpaceX founder Elon Musk had recently revealed that no current technology in the earth is capable to protect the earth from asteroid hits. The South African billionaire made these shocking comments on Twitter when one of his followers asked him whether asteroid Apophis will hit the earth in 2029.
Lembit Öpik, chairman of Parliament for the space-based micronation of Asgardia believes that humans will not survive a dreaded asteroid hit which triggers devastation on a global scale, and he claimed that cockroaches, deep-sea creatures, and certain other living organisms that feed on dead meat may survive the impact.
