WE Online, Washington –
Asteroid tracker NASA noted that a large asteroid with a size comparable to the tallest building Burj Khalifa in Dubai is heading towards Earth in mid-December 2021.
Reported from Jerusalem Post, Monday (11/15/2021), this massive asteroid has a diameter of about 791 meters, almost half a mile in length and is claimed to be 163899 (2003 SD220).
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However, observations made in 2015 by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico showed that it could be much larger, at least 2 kilometers long, with observers comparing its shape to that of a sweet potato.
The asteroid will fly past Earth on December 17 at a distance of about 5.4 million kilometers from the planet at a speed of 5.6 km/s.
In comparison, the distance between the Earth and the Moon is much closer than that, which is around 385,000 km.
Thus, although it is classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) due to its size and proximity to Earth, it does not appear to pose a threat to the planet.
In fact, NASA has made sure Earth is safe from asteroid impacts for the next 100 years.
Nevertheless, despite its potential, many are also genuinely concerned about the dangers of near-Earth asteroids, as their impacts can be devastating and humanity currently lacks adequate means to defend against them.
One method for possibly stopping an asteroid impact is through the use of deflection, which means launching something to slightly change its path.
In layman’s terms, that means punching an asteroid with a rocket with enough speed to change its course by a fraction of a second.
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