NASA Alert! 721-Foot asteroid to zip past Earth on Monday

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Flipboard
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
NASA Alert! 721-Foot asteroid to zip past Earth on Monday
NASA Alert! 721-Foot asteroid to zip past Earth on Monday

New Delhi : NASA has detected a massive 721-foot asteroid with an Earth-crossing orbit currently headed for the planet. As mentioned by the Agency's Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), the asteroid is off the Golden Gate Bridge tower. CNEOS estimated that the asteroid is about 721 feet wide.

The approaching asteroid has been identified by CNEOS as 2019 UR2.

According to the website data, the asteroid is travelling towards earth at a speed of over 30,000 miles per hour.

According to CNEOS, 2019 UR2 is officially classified as an Apollo asteroid. Since asteroid is falling on the Earth's orbit it has been labeled as near-Earth object that means an asteroid that is known to approach the Earth at a very close distance.

It is currently one of the thousands of asteroids that CNEOS is currently monitoring due to the threat it poses on Earth.

Going by the size and current speed of the asteroid, if it collides with the planet then it will leave a high impact. An impact caused by 2019 UR2 would create a crater that’s at least two miles wide. The energy that will be released from the asteroid’s explosion would be powerful enough to incinerate and wipe out an entire city.

Fortunately, Earth does not possess any danger of collision with the asteroid as of now.

According to the agency, the asteroid will fly past Earth on Nov. 18 at 1:58 a.m. EST. During this time, the asteroid will be about 0.04609 astronomical units or around 4.3 million miles from the planet’s center.