Published 19:49 IST, December 24th 2019
NASA reveals 2,000ft wide asteroid will fly past Earth on Dec 26
The scientists at NASA have revealed that a 2000 feet wide asteroid will pass the earth's surface with a speed of 27000 mph in the early hours of December 26.
The scientists at NASA have revealed that a 2,000 feet wide asteroid will pass the earth's surface with a speed of 27,000 mph in the early hours of December 26. The group of scientists is monitoring the movement of the massive asteroid known as '310442 (2000 CH59)'. They expect that the heavenly mass will be the closest to the earth on December 26 at 7:54 am. The space agency's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) has studied the object and measured the diameter of the object to be approximately 2,034 feet. Paul Chodas, director of CNEOS said that these asteroids may evolve for a long period of time into Earth-crossing orbits. It is officially termed as 'near-Earth object' when any comet or asteroid with a path around the sun takes it within 121 million miles of the star and 30 million miles of our orbit.
Asteroid to fly past Earth
The scientists have classified the rock as potentially hazardous as it measures more than 460ft in diameter. Its projected trajectory is expected to take it within 0.05 astronomical units of Earth. In September this year, two relatively smaller size asteroids flew safely past the Earth. NASA was tracking the asteroids, one since 2000 and other since 2010. NASA in a statement said that the near-earth asteroid 2010 C01, estimated to be 400 to 850 feet (120 to 260 meters) in size flew past Earth at 11:42 pm EDT on September 13, while the second object, 2000 QW7 which is estimated to be 950 to 2,100 feet (290 to 650 meters) in size flew past later at 7:54 pm EDT on September 14.
In another case this year, NASA detected a tiny, harmless object that broke up in the atmosphere and impacted the Caribbean sea on June 22, 2019. It was captured by the Geostationary Lightning Mapper instrument aboard GOES-16, an Earth-monitoring satellite operated by NOAA and NASA. The asteroid was only about 16 feet (5 meters) in size and was detected at 9:45 am on Saturday, June 22 by the University of Hawaii's ATLAS survey telescope on Maunaloa in Hawaii.
Updated 20:09 IST, December 24th 2019