An asteroid larger than the Statue of Liberty will fly over Earth at 20:20 GMT on Christmas Day, according to data from NASA’s Center for Near Earth Studies.
The asteroid, called 2014 SD224, will reach 0.02019 astronomical units, or nearly 1.9 million miles, from the Earth’s surface.
The 2014 SD224 is between 92 and 210 meters in diameter (302 to 690 feet), which means it can be more than twice the size of the Statue of Liberty (305 feet) or larger than the Cathedral of Salisbury (404 feet).
When in 2014 SD224 flies over the Earth, it will travel at a speed of 10 kilometers per second or more than 22,000 miles per hour, approximately 30 times the speed of sound.
Despite being about eight times farther than the Moon, the asteroid is classified as an object close to Earth (NEO) and the space agency tracks it.
The asteroid could be more than twice the size of the Statue of Liberty (305 feet) or the Elizabeth Tower (better known as Big Ben) and larger than Salisbury Cathedral (404 feet).
Asteroid 2014 SD224 (also known as 501647) and its trajectory in relation to the orbits of the planets of our solar system. The Earth’s orbit is light blue
Although the 2014 SD224, which can be traced on NASA’s website, is at a distance of 1.9 million kilometers, it is relatively close in astronomical terms.
For this reason, NEO defines the 2014 SD224, although it is not expected to hurt.
NEOs are an asteroid or comet whose orbit carries it through an area between approximately 195 million km from the Sun, which means it can pass about 50 million kilometers from the orbit of the earth .
If the object is more than 140 meters in diameter, it is considered a potentially dangerous object (PHO).
“NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been propelled by the gravitational pull of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter Earth’s neighborhood,” NASA said.
‘Comets mainly of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system, while most rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
“The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is largely due to their status as relatively unaltered waste from the process of formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.”
According to publicly available NASA data, as of Tuesday, 24,629 NEOs have been discovered.
It is estimated that there are about 25,000 objects close to the Earth (NEO) of more than 140 meters.
And there are also an estimated 1,000 NEOs over a 3,280-foot mile, which highlights the need to track these space rocks.
On average, the Earth is hit by a rock the size of a football field every 5,000 years and an asteroid that kills civilization every million years, according to NASA’s near-Earth object program.
NEOs are an asteroid or comet whose orbit carries it through an area between approximately 195 million km from the Sun, which means that it can pass about 50 million kilometers from the orbit of the earth (stock image)
“Continuously searching for asteroids, we hope to find most asteroids of a hundred-meter scale over time, as each passes through our planet many years or decades before a possible potential impact,” said Paul Chodas, director of the NASA Center for Near Earth Studies told Newsweek.
“We have already inventoried more than 95 percent of the really large asteroids (1 kilometer or 0.62 miles in size and more) and we know that none of them have any chance of affecting us for the next century.”
Last month an asteroid the size of a London bus that lost Earth just 386 km (Friday the 13th) was unveiled
The space rock, called ‘2020 VT4’, was only detected 15 hours after its closest approach by the latest Asteroid Earth Impact Warning system in Mauna Loa, Hawaii.
If it had gotten too close, the 5- to 10-meter-wide body would have burned into the South Pacific atmosphere.
Its orbit took it to the same distance from Earth as the International Space Station, making it the closest asteroid that has ever passed through Earth.
Astronomers are looking for asteroids over 450 feet because they can cause “catastrophic damage”
Researchers have discovered most asteroids that are about a kilometer in size, but are now looking for those that are about 140 m long, as they could cause catastrophic damage.
Although no one knows when the next big impact will occur, scientists have come under pressure to predict and intercept its arrival.
Impression of the artist portrayed
“Sooner or later we will have … a greater or lesser impact,” said Rolf Densing, who heads the European Space Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt
It may not happen in our lives, he said, but “the risk of the Earth being affected in a devastating event one day is very high.”
“At the moment, there is little we can do.”
Source: AFP