A massive asteroid estimated to be the size of the Space Needle tower located in Washington is going to collide with the orbit of the Earth on Christmas Day. As the world celebrates Christmas, the asteroid 501647 is going to be zooming past the planet Earth at 22,300 miles per hour.
It is expected that the asteroid to pass our planet safely but is going to collide with the orbit of the Earth beforehand as NASA has classed it as an Apollo asteroid. The Apollo asteroids are the Near-Earth Objects that have a greater axis compared to the rest of the Earth and therefore will collide with the planet in orbit.
Asteroid Coming Towards Earth
The space rock is estimated to be anywhere between 90m and 210m, which makes it one of the biggest asteroids to pass the Earth in December. To properly put this into perspective, at the upper limit, the asteroid has the potential to be bigger than the Space Needle in Washington located in Seattle.
The Space Needle stands at a whopping 184m tall and was designed for the World's Fair in 1962. Like a space rock, the Space Needle moves because the engineers equipped the building with a rotating restaurant, at the peak turning at speeds of around 0.053 kph.
Asteroid 501647 is going to pass the planet Earth on December 25, otherwise known as Christmas Day in a few of the nations. It is going to zip past just as you are about to go behind for seconds at 8.20 pm Eastern Standard Time, equivalent to 1.20 am making it Boxing Day in the UK. Another asteroid is going to grace the skies on Boxing Day, 2012XE133 is going to pass Earth a whole day after 501647. It is estimated to be between 56m and 120m wide making it smaller than the Christmas Day rock.
