NASA warns of 213 diameter asteroid heading toward Earth

NASA warns of 213 diameter asteroid heading toward Earth
NASA warns of 213 diameter asteroid heading toward Earth
Anonim

The US space agency has warned of a series of space rocks heading towards Earth ranging in size from 10 meters in diameter to 213 meters.

On Mars this week, NASA is busy monitoring the skies for potential threats to life on Earth, namely asteroids. And this week was no exception, since five such space stones are already flying in our direction.

On Sunday, the 10-meter asteroid 2021 DD1 and the 61-meter asteroid 2021 DK1 flew past Earth at a safe distance of 1.6 million kilometers and 6 million kilometers, respectively.

However, this is just a warm-up for what NASA calls asteroid 2020 XU6, which is about 213 meters in diameter. For comparison, it is twice the height of London's Big Ben and two and a half times the height of the Statue of Liberty.

The XU6 2020 moves at a speed of 8, 4 kilometers per second or 30 240 kilometers per hour. Given that the circumference of the Earth is 40,075 kilometers, the asteroid will take a little over an hour to orbit the entire planet.

Fortunately, the space rock is expected to fly by about four million kilometers by us when it flies by today on February 22, so that humanity can breathe a sigh of relief.

Soon, the giant space rock will be followed by BV9 (23 meters), which will travel at a distance of 5.6 million kilometers, and CC5 of 2021 (40 meters), which will travel approximately 6.9 million kilometers.

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