While our world is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, NASA has some news for us that won¡¯t make our current experience any better. It has pointed out that another?asteroid?is travelling towards Earth and it¡¯s going to get the closest to our planet on September 14.
The asteroid named 2020QL2 is roughly 120 metres large. The Statue of Liberty in the US is roughly 46 metres tall, so this would be around three times larger than the monument.
The enormous asteroid will brush past Earth, at a speed of roughly 10.5 kilometres per second. While this is surely fast, we have very little to worry about.
The asteroid will be travelling from roughly 4,259,235 miles away. To put this into perspective this is roughly ten times the distance between Moon and Earth so it¡¯s pretty far away from our planet. Despite being so far, NASA has regarded it as a NEO or a Near-Earth Object.?
NEOs are comets and asteroids that have altered their trajectory under the influence of gravitational pulls from planets that put them in orbits that bring them closer to our planet. According to NASA, "Potentially hazardous" NEOs are defined as space objects that come within 0.05 astronomical units (4.6 million miles) and measure more than 460 feet in diameter.¡± One astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the Sun.
2020QL2 was first discovered in August and most recently sighted by astronomers on September 3. It is very common for asteroids and?meteors?to fly by the Moon or Earth and aren't really threatening. However, they are surely monitored as sometimes a few fragments tend to enter Earth's atmosphere, but they explode upon entry and result in shiny meteor showers.
Just a week ago, another asteroid larger than 2020QL2 safety went past our planet. The?asteroid, 465824 (2010 FR)?made its closest approach to Earth on September 6.?
The space rock was considerably large in size, expected to range from 120 to 270 metres in diameter. Just to put things into perspective, Rome¡¯s Colosseum is around 118 meters in diameter.