Update from Nasa on asteroid ‘the size of the Shard’ predicted to hit this year

Asteroid Impact — A ‘lost’ asteroid was predicted to hit Earth on October 5 (Picture: Getty/Science Photo Libra)

Good news for the new year. Nasa says a ‘lost’ asteroid the size of the Shard won’t hit us on October 5 – although we still technically don’t know where it is.

The 54 million ton asteroid 2007 FT3 was spotted for less than a day and a half in 2007 before disappearing from view, becoming too faint for telescopes to spot.

That still allowed time to collect enough data to estimate the 300 metre-wide asteroid’s orbit, with some calculations suggesting there were 89 potential impacts with Earth, including one on October 5, 2024.

Although still only a one in 11.5 million chance (and your chances of winning the lottery are one in four million), if 2007 FT3 did strike, it would do so with the force of 2.6 billion tons of TNT. That’s enough for regional devastation, but not enough to wipe us off the planet, dino-style.

Still, not ideal.

However, not only was one of those in 2019 (and we didn’t notice an asteroid impact, did you?), Nasa remains confident that ‘no known asteroid larger than 140 metres in size has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years’.

The US space agency is continually scanning the skies for potential hazards, termed near-Earth objects, or NEOs.

Asteroid path — Updated calculations show the asteroid, in white, will not hit Earth, in blue (Picture: Nasa/JPL)

These are all listed on its database, which anyone can check out.

But with the calendar flipping over to 2024 and renewed interest in 2007 FT3 in the media, Nasa has doubled-down on its position.

‘There are no known asteroid impact threats to Earth at any time in the next century. Nasa and its partners diligently watch the skies to find, track, and categorise asteroids and near-Earth objects, including those that may come close to Earth,’ a Nasa spokesperson told The Standard.

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Nasa is also a big fan of large margins of error.

The spokesperson added: ‘‘An important note here is planetary scientists define asteroid approaches that come within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit as close approaches.

‘The larger an asteroid is, the easier it is for our planetary defence experts to find, meaning that their orbits around the Sun are usually very well-known and understood for years or even decades.’

For reference, the Sun is around 93 million miles from Earth, so that 30 million mark brings them about a third of the distance away – still pretty far.

To help calm the situation, Nasa has not speculated on the damage that would occur if 2007 FT3 did crash into Earth, but of course the internet does no such thing. A number of sites online allow you to virtually smash a massive rock into your hometown and witness the devastation.

But there is some vital information missing for 2007 FT3 when estimating the damage, given we don’t know what it is made of – rock, iron, a mix – or what angle it would hit the planet, but we do know it is travelling at roughly 12 miles per second.

However, it is still far from a species killer like the Chicxulub asteroid widely credited with sparking the demise of the dinosaurs (and if you haven’t googled it before, try it now – fun).

Chicxulub is thought to have been between six and ten miles wide, also travelling at around 12 miles a second.

It hit the planet on the edge of what is now Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, blasting a crater more than 100 miles across, and creating a mountain range taller than the Himalayas around its edge.

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