NASA News: Asteroid the size of London Eye will soon pass very close to Earth's orbit

Asteroids, Comets, Black Holes, Stars and all or celestial objects often inspire awe, bewilderment and even fear amongst people. Moreover, y have always been a subject of interest, inspiration and curiosity for ncy NASA. According to reports on NASA’s website Asteroid 2020ND, will be passing close to Earth and this celestial event is set to occur on July 24, 2020, as confirmed by NASA’s website.

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Asteroid Bigger than London Eye to pass close to Earth

size of Asteroid 2020ND has been compared to size of London Eye, by several media portals. famous United Kingdom landmark is 443 feet high. Reports on several media portals have claimed that  Asteroid 2020ND is larger than London Eye by as much as 50 per cent.

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NASA News: Is Asteroid 2020ND potentially hazardous?

According to reports on NASA Official website, rock will come within just 0.037 astromical units (AU) of our planet. NASA official website has to define Potentially Hazardous Asteroids also kwn as PHAs are currently defined based on parameters which measure asteroid’s potential to make threatening close approaches to Earth. More specifically, all asteroids with a minimum orbit intersection distance also kwn as MOID of 0.05 AU or less and an absolute magnitude (H) of 22.0 or less are considered PHAs.

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Hence, Asteroid 2020ND fits definition of a Potentially Hazardous Object. An astromical unit is equal to about 150 million kilometres or roughly distance from Earth to Sun. To get more context on this one needs to kw that, one AU is approximately 93 million miles which are 150 million km, or to be precise it is 149,598,000 km.

If this is put in light minutes, it will be 8 light-minutes, which is distance between Earth and Sun. gigantic Asteroid2020ND is travelling at an astounding speed of 13.5 kilometres per second or 48,000 kilometres per hour. It will soon be only 5,086,327 kilometres away from Earth which in astromical terms is - a hair's width.

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Has NASA issued warning for Asteroid 2020ND?

So far ncy has t issued any warning about asteroid on eir its social media handles or ncy’s website. On NASA: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) website: objects like Asteroid 2020ND, are called Near-Earth Objects when y come close to planet. NEOs can be comets or asteroids that have been nudged by gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits. Hence y enter Earth’s neighbourhood.