NASA has revealed that an aircraft-sized asteroid could come extremely close to Earth today.
According to NASA, asteroids can generally be spotted within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Interaction with a planet’s gravitational field, especially one as large as Jupiter, can knock the asteroid off its orbit and hurt it in all directions.
NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office keeps a check on these Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) for any potential collision with Earth.
It declares them as Potentially Hazardous Objects if they come within around 8 million kilometers of Earth. Although the planet is safe from any asteroid approaches today, NASA has warned that a huge aircraft-sized asteroid is speeding towards the planet for a comparative approach, which could happen tomorrow.
NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office has red-flagged an asteroid named Asteroid 2019 XQ1 due to its extremely close approach to the planet. The asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth tomorrow, December 13, at a distance of 5.5 million kilometers per hour.
This 92-foot is already on its way toward the planet traveling at a speed of nearly 35238 kilometers per hour, surpassing the speed of a hypersonic ballistic missile!
According to the-sky.org, the Asteroid 2019 XQ1 belongs to the Aten group of asteroids. It was discovered recently on December 4, 2019. This asteroid takes 364 days to complete one trip around the Sun during which its maximum distance from the Sun is 191 million kilometers and its nearest distance is 107 million kilometers.
NASA keeps a watch on these asteroids by studying data collected by various telescopes and observations such as the Pan-STARRS, the Catalina Sky Survey, and the NEOWISE telescope. NASA also has a NEO Surveyor mission planned for launch in 2006 to gain even greater in-depth data using a new orbiter.
NASA also has a new impact monitoring system in place which uses an algorithm called Sentry-II to calculate the impact risk of Near-Earth Objects. NASA can track the orbital path of the asteroid using this infrared data and can even predict its orbit years into the future.
Earlier NASA revealed that they have the plan to launch its new mega Moon rocket in less than a week after the massive machine withstood a hurricane.
“Our time is coming. And we hope that that is on Wednesday,” said Mike Sarafin, the manager of the much-delayed Artemis 1 mission, at NASA headquarters.
The Artemis 1 mission, a test flight without astronauts, represents the first step in the US space agency’s plan to build a lasting presence on the Moon and take lessons from there to prepare for a future voyage to Mars.
Named after the sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, the new space program comes 50 years after humans last set foot on lunar soil.
The first launch of the Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful ever designed by NASA, is set for Wednesday at 1:04 am local time (0604 GMT), with a possible launch window of two hours.
Read More : NASA going to launch its new mega Moon rocket
