Nasa has warned of an asteroid bigger than the London Eye set to zoom past Earth this week.
According to Nasa’s Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies, the massive space rock named 2013 WV44 will make its closest approach to Earth at around 9am on Wednesday, June 28.
The asteroid is about 160metres in diametre which is bigger than 10 buses stacked end to end and will get as close as 3.3million kilometres to Earth.
Travelling at a speed of 11.8 kilometres per second, it will be moving at roughly 34 times the speed of sound.
It is classed by astronomers as ‘potentially hazardous’ as it will come within 7.5million kilometres of our planet. Still, it poses no threat to life on Earth.
That’s nearly 19 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. So it’s safe to say that despite its size, the asteroid WV44 poses no harm.
Nasa has been tracking the trajectories of all near-Earth objects beyond the end of the century and it looks like the Earth is in no grave danger for at least the next 100 years.
In the event that a space object is getting too close for comfort Nasa has it covered.
Last year, Nasa crashed a spacecraft into a small asteroid, managing to successfully alter its orbit.
This marked humanity’s first time intentionally changing the motion of a celestial object and the first full-scale demonstration of asteroid deflection technology.
So, in the event an ‘earth-threatening’ asteroid ever does seem to be heading for Earth, then a similar method can be confidently deployed to protect humanity.
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