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

Asteroids, Comets, Black Holes, Stars and all other celestial objects often inspire awe, bewilderment and even fear amongst people. Moreover, they have always been a subject of interest, inspiration and curiosity for the space agency NASA. According to the 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

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

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NASA News: Is Asteroid 2020ND potentially hazardous?

According to the reports on NASA Official website, the space rock will come within just 0.037 astronomical units (AU) of our planet. NASA official website has to define Potentially Hazardous Asteroids also known as PHAs are currently defined based on parameters which measure the asteroid’s potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth. More specifically, all asteroids with a minimum orbit intersection distance also known 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 the definition of a Potentially Hazardous Object. An astronomical unit is equal to about 150 million kilometres or roughly the distance from the Earth to the Sun. To get more context on this one needs to know 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 the distance between Earth and the Sun. The 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 astronomical terms is - a hair's width.

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Has NASA issued warning for Asteroid 2020ND?

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