An Asteroid the size of the Statue of Liberty has just passed the Earth
NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies has been tracking the asteroid for 10 years. Researchers have since calculated that the asteroid will pass by Earth at a distance of 3.3 million kilometers on June 28, at 4 a.m. ET or 3 p.m. Vietnam time. Compared to the size of the Solar System, this distance is considered very close.
Rare asteroids pose a serious threat to the Earth, like the one that hit the Earth 66 million years ago and caused mass extinction, but there is still the risk of a dangerous situation in the future. That's why agencies like the US Space Agency (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) are spending a lot of time and money tracking asteroids in space.
Even last year, NASA tested a defense system that can change an asteroid's orbit in case it hits Earth, called DART. The test, which crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid, changed the direction of the object, and engineers are now continuing to refine the system to further increase efficiency.
"A relatively small number of objects are large enough and close enough to Earth to warrant close observation," NASA said. However, over time the gravity of the planets can change the orbit of an object and cause its orbit to collide with the Earth, so there is still the risk of a future collision.
The agency also catalogs asteroids larger than one kilometer close to Earth, having recorded nearly 1,000 asteroids to date, or about 95 percent of the total. It is estimated that in the next 1,000 years, none of these asteroids will hit Earth. The asteroid with the highest risk of impact is 1994 PC1, about a kilometer wide, and has a 0.00151% chance of impact.
Rare asteroids pose a serious threat to the Earth, like the one that hit the Earth 66 million years ago and caused mass extinction, but there is still the risk of a dangerous situation in the future. That's why agencies like the US Space Agency (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) are spending a lot of time and money tracking asteroids in space.
Even last year, NASA tested a defense system that can change an asteroid's orbit in case it hits Earth, called DART. The test, which crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid, changed the direction of the object, and engineers are now continuing to refine the system to further increase efficiency.
"A relatively small number of objects are large enough and close enough to Earth to warrant close observation," NASA said. However, over time the gravity of the planets can change the orbit of an object and cause its orbit to collide with the Earth, so there is still the risk of a future collision.
The agency also catalogs asteroids larger than one kilometer close to Earth, having recorded nearly 1,000 asteroids to date, or about 95 percent of the total. It is estimated that in the next 1,000 years, none of these asteroids will hit Earth. The asteroid with the highest risk of impact is 1994 PC1, about a kilometer wide, and has a 0.00151% chance of impact.
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