4 Big Asteroids Racing Towards Earth Today, NASA Alerts; Can They Destroy The Planet?

New Delhi: Four huge-size asteroids are racing towards Earth today, September 20. These asteroids are expected to pass by the planet at around 1 pm, 8 pm, 9 pm, and 11 pm. The size of the first asteroid named 2024 RJ1 is 19.3 meters. It is expected to pass by Earth at 1.16 pm today. It is at 27,76,119 km distance from Earth. The second asteroid named 2024 RB10 will pass by the planet at 8.55 pm. Its size is 72.8 m. It is at a distance of 7,27,5712 km from Earth. 

An asteroid named 2024 QV5 is at a distance of 5,337,633 km from Earth and will pass by it at 9.36 pm. Its size is 34.6 m. Another asteroid RB22 will cross the Earth at 11.41 pm. Its size is 43.4 m. Another asteroid named 2018 VG will pass by Earth tomorrow, September 21. Currently, it is at a distance of 51 lakh km. The size of the asteroid is 11.8 m. 

However, none of these asteroids pose any threat to the planet, according to NASA experts. 

Can Asteroids Destroy Earth?

Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory earlier told the media that they check the possibility of collision of an asteroid with Earth not just for the near future but also for the next centuries. He later explained that there is no possibility of collision in the next hundred hundred years. 

An object larger than about 150 meters approaching the Earth within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million km) is termed a potentially hazardous object. 

Interestingly, the asteroid that killed dinosaurs 66 million years ago was around 10-15 kilometres wide in size and they created a crater of size 150 kilometres in diameter. Asteroids can lead to disastrous wildfires and tsunamis. In the year 1908, an asteroid flattened 2000 km of Siberian forest.