Gigantic asteroid will pass close to earth today

At 4.56 pm local time today, an enormous asteroid will pass the earth.

The asteroid is predicted to be 5 times larger than the world’s tallest building.

Even the worlds largest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, would be miniaturised by the asteroid.

NASA scientists first spotted the rock, otherwise known by the catchy name of (52768) 1998 OR2, in 1998, and they have been tracking its progress ever since.

NASA tweeted: “Asteroid 1998 OR2 will safely pass by Earth at a distance of 3.9 million miles/6.2 million km on April 29.

“Astronomers studying the #asteroid with radar are also keeping a safe distance – from each other! Just another day for #planetarydefense.”

If you want to watch it passing by, The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome will host a free, online public viewing of the asteroid on today, so you can watch it here.

Fortunately for us, the likeness of the asteroid colliding into the earth is extremely low.

Although, NASA has not completely disregarded the possibility of an asteroid collision in the foreseeable future.

Even the space agency has warned its NEO catalogue isn’t complete, meaning an unpredicted impact could occur at ‘any time.’

NASA explained:

“Experts estimate that an impact of an object the size of the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013 – approximately 55 feet (17 meters) in size – takes place once or twice a century.”

“Impacts of larger objects are expected to be far less frequent (on the scale of centuries to millennia).”

“However, given the current incompleteness of the NEO catalogue, an unpredicted impact – such as the Chelyabinsk event – could occur at any time.”

SOURCE:Mirror

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