NASA has recently discovered a "potentially hazardous" asteroid nearly the size of the tallest skyscraper in the world. This massive asteroid could pass by Earth this Halloween, as reported first by Space.com.
The diameter of the asteroid, designated 2022 RM4, is believed to be between 1,083 and 2,428 feet (330 and 740 meters), which is barely below the height of Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest structure at 2,716 feet (828 m).
According to NASA, it will fly by our planet at around 68 times the speed of sound, or about 52,500 mph (84,500 km/h).
Near-Earth Object
On November 1, the asteroid will be around 1.43 million miles (2.3 million kilometers) from Earth at its closest approach, which is roughly six times the typical distance between Earth and the moon.
However, Space.com noted that this is a relatively slim margin by cosmic standards.
Any space object that comes within 120,000,000 miles (193,000,000 km) of Earth is designated as a "near-Earth object" by NASA, and any large body that approaches within 4.65,000,000 miles (7.5,000,000 km) of Earth is classified as "potentially hazardous."
Astronomers actively monitor these possible hazards once they have been warned, using radar to look for any indications that their anticipated trajectories have changed, which might place them on a deadly crash course with Earth.
About 28,000 asteroids are tracked by NASA, and their positions and orbits are determined using the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) - a system of four telescopes that can survey the whole night sky every 24 hours.
ATLAS has discovered over 700 near-Earth asteroids and 66 comets since it went online in 2017. 2019 MO and 2018 LA, two of the asteroids discovered by ATLAS, did in fact strike Earth; the former exploded off the coast of Puerto Rico, and the latter crashed-landed close to the boundary of Botswana and South Africa.
However, these strikes did not cause any destruction.
Asteroid Collision in the Next 100 Years
All of the near-Earth objects' projected trajectories to the end of the century have been calculated by NASA. The space agency said that there is no known threat to Earth from an asteroid collision for at least the next 100 years.
A meteor the size of a bowling ball detonated above Vermont in March 2021 with the equivalent force of 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of TNT.
A meteor that erupted in 2013 above the city of Chelyabinsk in central Russia produced a blast that was roughly equivalent to 400-500 kilotons of TNT, or 26-33 times the energy produced by the Hiroshima bomb, as per Space.com.
The asteroid Dimorphos was rammed off course on September 26 by the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft, changing the asteroid's orbit by 32 minutes. This was the first test of the Earth's planetary defense system.
Fireballs from the 2013 explosion shattered structures and injured over 1,500 people.
Space agencies from all over the world are already developing potential strategies to divert an asteroid if astronomers were to ever detect one heading in our direction.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
