An asteroid larger than the Statue of Liberty will pass through Earth at 8:20 pm 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.
2014 SD224 has a diameter between 302 and 690 feet (92 to 210 meters) – which means it can be more than twice the size of the Statue of Liberty (305 feet) or larger than Salisbury Cathedral (404 feet) .
While the SD224 2014 flies beyond Earth, it will be traveling at a speed of 10 kilometers per second or more than 22,000 miles per hour – about 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 is being tracked by the space agency.
The asteroid may be more than twice the size of the Statue of Liberty (305 feet) or 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 in our Solar System. Earth’s orbit is light blue
Although 2014 SD224 – which can be tracked on the NASA website – is 1.9 million miles away, this is relatively close in astronomical terms.
For this reason, 2014 SD224 is defined by NEO, although it is not expected to cause damage.
NEOs are an asteroid or comet whose orbit brings it into or through an area between approximately 91 million and 121 million miles (195 million km) from the Sun, which means that it can pass about 30 million miles (50 million km) of Earth’s orbit.
If the object is larger than 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter, it is considered a potentially dangerous object (PHO).
“NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been pushed by the gravitational pull of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter Earth’s neighborhoods,” said NASA.
‘Composed mainly of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system, while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the innermost solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
“The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is largely due to their status as relatively unchanged remnants of the solar system’s formation process some 4.6 billion years ago.”
According to publicly available data from NASA, there were 24,629 NEOs discovered as of Tuesday.
It is estimated that there are about 25,000 objects close to Earth (NEOs) larger than 460 feet (140 meters).
And there are also about 1,000 NEOs greater than 3,280 feet (one kilometer), highlighting the need to maintain control of 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 destroys civilization every one million years, according to NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program.
NEOs are an asteroid or comet whose orbit takes you into or through an area between approximately 91 million and 121 million miles (195 million km) from the Sun, which means it can pass about 30 million miles (50 million km) from Earth’s orbit (stock image)
“By continually searching for asteroids, we hope to eventually find most of the 100-meter-scale asteroids over time, as each passes through our planet many years or decades before a potential potential impact,” Paul Chodas, director of NASA Center for Near Earth Studies, he told Newsweek.
“We have already invented more than 95% of really large asteroids (1 kilometer or 0.62 miles in size and larger) and we know that none of them has any chance of making an impact in the next century.”
Last month, it was revealed that an asteroid the size of a London bus missed Earth by only 386 km – on Friday, 13
The space rock, dubbed ‘2020 VT4’, was detected just 15 hours after its closest approach by the latest terrestrial asteroid impact warning system in Mauna Loa, Hawaii.
If it had gotten too close, the body 5 to 10 meters wide would have burned in the atmosphere over the South Pacific.
Its orbit brought it about the same distance from Earth as the International Space Station, making it the closest asteroid to pass through Earth on record so far.
Astronomers are hunting asteroids over 450 feet as they can cause ‘catastrophic damage’
Researchers have found most asteroids about a kilometer in size, but are now looking for those as far as 140 meters – as they can cause catastrophic damage.
Although no one knows when the next big impact will occur, scientists found themselves under pressure to predict – and intercept – their arrival.
Artist impression in the photo
‘Sooner or later we will have … a lesser or greater impact,’ said Rolf Densing, who heads the European Space Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt
It may not happen during our lifetime, he said, but “the risk that the Earth will be hit by a devastating event one day is very high.”
‘For now, there is little we can do.’
Source: AFP