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Published 20:13 IST, July 20th 2020

Asteroid 2002 BF25 will pass very close to Earth's orbit on July 21: NASA

According to NASA's website, a potentially hazardous Asteroid named 2002 BF25 will be passing very close to the Earth. Learn more about the celestial event.

Reported by: Disha Kandpal
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The space agency NASA, since its inception, has been keeping a keen eye and tracking the course of several hundreds of asteroids that could potentially be hazardous to human life on Earth. NASA has deployed specific Asteroid watching satellites to discover and gather information about the movement of several asteroids.

Apart from tracking the movement of the discovered asteroids, the space agency also shares the information gathered on its official website. Read on to know if the incoming asteroid 2002 BF25 is potentially hazardous to humans.

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incoming asteroid

Source: NASA

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Asteroid 2002 BF25 to pass close to Earth's Orbit

Asteroid 2002 BF25 was first discovered by NASA on January 25, 2002, hence lending the asteroid its unique name. Since it’s discovery the American Space Agency has been tracking its course. According to NASA’s official website, the most recent observation NASA made of the space rock was on July 18, 2020. 

Hence, as per the space agency’s observations, Asteroid 2002 BF25 is set to pass extremely close to Earth on Tuesday, July 21, 2020. According to NASA’s official website, it has been tracking the asteroid's movements across the Sun to calculate how close it will come to Earth.

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Asteroid to hit Earth: Is the Asteroid potentially hazardous? 

According to NASA, Asteroids that orbit the Sun within 30 million miles of Earth are called Near-Earth Objects or NEOS. Reports of a space portal suggest that, if an asteroid which is larger than 450 feet comes closer than 4 million miles, it is designated as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid or PHA. According to the reports of a space portal, Asteroid 2002 BF25 is the size of a school bus.

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NASA reports claim that Asteroid 2002 BF25 will pass from a nominal distance of 0.24 AU from Earth. When converts into miles this distance become 2 million miles. Hence, Asteroid 2002 BF25 is potentially hazardous. However, no warning has been generated by the space agency yet.

This might mean that as per NASA’s calculations of the Asteroids course, it is expected to pass safely without causing any potential danger to the planet. On August 5, 2020, another Asteroid named 2009 PQ1 is set to pass only about 2 million miles away from Earth. Hence, Asteroid  2009 PQ1 is also in the Potentially Hazardous zone.

Updated 20:13 IST, July 20th 2020