‘City-killer’ Asteroid 2019 OK blazes close to Earth but narrowly misses it

It was a close call as a massive asteroid, blazing at 15 miles per second, just missed Earth on Thursday. The extraterrestrial object, which has been named Asteroid 2019 OK, reportedly came closer to the Earth than the Moon, which is visible to us, but fortunately didn’t strike the planet. 

READ: Ravichandran Ashwin irked Over Fake 'RIP Vijay' Trend Amid Asteroids, Irregular Weather & Criminal Cases

As per reports, Asteroid 2019 OK, said to be in the range of 187 and 427 feet in diameter, was 43,500 miles from hitting Earth on Thursday around 11.22 AM British Summer Time. 

The asteroid is being termed as a ‘city killer’ as experts claim that if the collision would’ve happened, the impact would’ve been similar to the explosion of a ‘very large nuclear weapon’. 

Some experts also claimed that the explosion would’ve been 30 times as massive as the impact of the Hiroshima atomic blast. 

According to reports, the rock was seen some days before it neared the Earth because it ventured towards us from the Sun. 

Reports also stated that this is not the first time that Asteroid 2019 OK has come near Earth. Previously, it had happened in February 2017 as well. However, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had then stated that it was over 25 million miles away. 

As per reports, this wasn’t the only asteroid that went past the Earth, Asteroid 2019 OD, Asteroid HM10 and Asteroid 2019 OE were also close. However, Asteroid 2019 OK is being said to be the largest and the closest. 

What is an asteroid? 

According to NASA, asteroids are rocky bodies that orbit the Sun like planets, but the basic difference is that asteroids are much smaller than planets. Most of the asteroids live in the mainasteroid belt—a region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. 

READ: Asteroid Averted: NASA Spots Small Asteroid On Course For Earth, Blasts It With Its Planetary Defence System

Ravichandran Ashwin’s mention: 

India’s star Test bowler Ravinchandran Ashwin, who has completed his Engineering before venturing into cricket, mentioned about the asteroid missing our planet, when he lashed out at the hoax reports of Tamil superstar Vijay’s death. 

He had tweeted, “There was an asteroid that missed hitting our planet a few days ago, irregular monsoons hitting different cities, droughts in many parts of our country and very disturbing criminal cases being spoken, but the young generation of our lovey state manage to trend this #RIPactorVIJAY.”