NASA confirms new asteroid heading toward earth; Will it just pass by or destroy the planet?

Asteroid
Asteroid heading towards earth (Representational picture)

There is no doubt that space rocks are one of humanity's major existential threats. Recently the US space agency NASA has revealed that an asteroid, almost the size of a blue whale, called 2019 RA is heading toward earth with a speed of 3.5 miles per second.

As per the recent reports, another asteroid known as 2019 MO has exploded after hitting earth's atmosphere above the Caribbean a few days ago that left NASA stunned as they did not know that it was heading towards the blue planet. But now the space agency has confirmation on the new asteroid incoming and they predicted to pass by earth at a "threatening distance" of just 44,000 miles away.

NASA said the destroyed asteroid called 2019 MO was about 310,000 miles away from earth when they first spotted it and added that "this was roughly the equivalent of spotting something the size of a gnat from a distance of 310 miles (500 kilometers)."

It should be mentioned that more than 700,000 asteroids have been spotted in space and as per the experts at least five of these asteroids will turn into a threat for the blue planet this year. If these killer asteroids somehow enter the earth's atmosphere and hit the planet, then there will be no existence of humans.

Recently NASA said that it has so far found and monitoring 8,000 near-earth asteroids which are at least 140 meters wide. As per Greg Leonard, a senior research specialist at the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS), which is an astronomical survey organization, "If we do nothing, sooner or later, there's a one hundred percent chance that one will get us."

CSS carries out monitoring every clear night with the exception of a few nights centered on the full moon. Ironic but its counterpart for the southern hemisphere Siding Spring Survey (SSS) in Australia ended in 2013 after funding was discontinued.

Related topics : Asteroid Nasa Space
READ MORE