NASA has stated that a potentially hazardous asteroid KT1, about 186 metres in size is going to pass within a distance of 72 lakh kilometres from the Earth on June 1. Even though the distance is 20 times higher than the distance between the Earth and the moon, it is considered 'near' on the astronomical scale.
Jet Propulsion Laboratories, which is funded by NASA and managed by the California Institute of Technology, manages a?dashboard?Asteroid Watch which states that?KT1 is one of the five closest asteroid approaches happening from May 31 to June 2.?
On May 31, a bus-sized asteroid is passing within a distance which is one-third of the distance between the Earth and moon. Others include two house-sized asteroids?and one airplane-sized asteroid, passing with distances that range from 11 lakh kilometers to 59 lakh kilometers.?
Due to their small sizes, they are not considered potentially dangerous by NASA.
However, since KT1 is much bigger in size, the space agency categorised asteroids bigger than 150 meters and that passes within 75 lakh kilometers as potentially hazardous.?
According to NASA, such celestial objects ¡°warrant close observation,¡± since changing gravitational pull coming from moving planets can change the path of an asteroid making it Earth-crossing over a period of time.?
If such an asteroid hits the planet, the impact will be devastating. But NASA has developed technologies that can send a huge mass to collide with a dangerous asteroid to break it and also deflect its path.?
Before technology took over, our planet has been hit by many small asteroids and meteoroids in the past.?