NASA warns of massive 'potentially hazardous' asteroid barreling towards Earth THIS FRIDAY!
The tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa, was built in 2004. It measures slightly more than half a mile and is 2722 ft tall. Ever since it was built, Burj Khalifa has racked up records for its gigantic stature. However, this week an asteroid that is set to pass by our home planet would make this building look minuscule.
The asteroid named 7335 (1989 JA) measures a whopping 1.1 miles (1.8 km), in terms of diameter. It will pass our planet on Friday, May 27, 2022 and NASA has labeled this asteroid 'potentially hazardous'.
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Will the asteroid hit Earth?
1989 JA is more likely to not be a threat to the Earth as it will be passing by our planet at a distance of 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers). For a better visual image, the distance between the passing asteroid and our planet would be almost 10 times the average distance between Earth and the Moon. As reported by NASA's Centre for Near Earth Object Studied, the asteroid will be the closest to our planet at 14:26 UTC on May 27, Friday. This center primarily tracks space rocks.
During its closest approach, the asteroid will be 0.026 astronomical units (2.5 million miles) from Earth and travelling at a staggering speed of roughly 29,348 miles/hour. This speed is stated to be a whopping 14.5 times faster than a bullet. As per NASA, 7335 (1989 JA), that has a 1.1 mile diameter is likely to be largest space rock to pass the Earth this year. Though the chances of this rock hitting our home planet are fairly low, NASA has not really declined that there will be no collisions in the future. NASA discovers around 30 new 'near-Earth objects' (NEOs) every week, and at the start of 2019 had discovered a total of more than 19,000 objects.
NASA explained, "Experts estimate that an impact of an object the size of the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013 – approximately 55 feet (17 meters) in size – takes place once or twice a century. Impacts of larger objects are expected to be far less frequent (on the scale of centuries to millennia). However, given the current incompleteness of the NEO catalogue, an unpredicted impact – such as the Chelyabinsk event – could occur at any time." To prepare against such impacts, NASA launched its first ever 'planetary defence' that deflects asteroids from 6.8 million miles from the Earth. It is called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test).
NASA has classified the asteroid as "potentially hazardous," meaning it could do enormous damage to the planet if its orbit ever changes and the rock impacts Earth. 7335 (1989 JA) fits into a class of asteroid called the Apollo-class — which refers to asteroids that orbit the sun while periodically crossing Earth's orbit, reports Live Science.