June 28, 2023 09:09 Last Update: 21:15
Asteroid hit the earth?
According to NASA, an asteroid named 2013 WV44 is so large that it is as long as 10 buses.
At an estimated 524 feet in diameter, the asteroid is larger than the London Eye at 394 feet and Big Ben at 310 feet.
AP pictures
The asteroid NASA is tracking, classified as a near-Earth object, comes at its closest distance of about 0.02334 AU, or About 2.1 million miles. From an astronomical point of view, it is relatively close.
NASA refers to near-Earth objects as comets and asteroids that are pushed into orbits by the gravity of nearby planets, bringing them into Earth’s vicinity.
unsplash image
unsplash image
Composed mostly of water ice and dust grains, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary systems, while most rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
AP pictures
A NEO is defined as being within 1.3 astronomical units (AU) (120.8 million miles) from the Sun, or 0.3 AU (27.8 million miles) from Earth’s orbit. NASA lists it as one of its upcoming close objects on its online tracker, which collects celestial objects that are coming closer and closer to Earth.
An asteroid is defined as “potentially hazardous” if it lies within 0.05 AU (4.65 million miles) of Earth and is larger than 459 feet (140 meters) in diameter. Thankfully, the 2013WV44 does not meet these specifications, so it is not considered potentially dangerous.
