A skyscraper-sized asteroid is set to narrowly miss Earth next week, Nasa has warned.
The space rock, dubbed 2024 ON, has been classified as “potentially hazardous” – and is set to hurtle past our planet at a staggering speed of 19,685 miles per hour – approximately 25 times the speed of sound.
With a 220-480m diameter, 2024 ON dwarfs landmarks like the Shard or Eiffel Tower – and would sit at 14th in a list of the world’s tallest skyscrapers.
But despite its size and speed, Nasa has maintained that 2024 ON is not expected to pose a danger to Earth or its inhabitants.
Fortunately, this space rock’s closest approach to Earth will see it stay twice as far away as the moon – but 2024 ON is still classified as a near-Earth object (NEO) and is being monitored by Nasa.
The space agency’s definition reads: “NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighbourhood.”
It goes on to detail that comets are formed in the cold outer planetary system, whilst rockier asteroids originated in the warmer inner solar system between Mars and…
Source www.gbnews.com
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