According to NASA, an asteroid that is three times larger than a blue whale will fly past Earth this Monday, June 6th, at more than 16,000 mph, which is 26,000 km/hr.
The asteroid, termed 2021 GT2, is foreseen to safely miss our Earth by more than 2.2 million miles or approximately ten times the typical extent between Earth and the moon. Astronomers first observed the space rock last year and calculated its size between 121 and 272 feet broad. While that seems pretty big, nearly one and three times the length of a blue whale, it isn’t large enough to be considered a potential threat to Earth.
The asteroid is evaluated as a near-Earth object, a term given to asteroids and comets that circle within 1.3 astronomical units of the sun. An astronomical unit Stands for the distance between Earth and the sun, roughly 93 million miles, or 149.6 million km. NASA monitors tens of thousands of these subjects, implying the trajectories of each one from the present day to hundreds of years into the future. At this instant, astronomers do not think that any near-Earth objects threaten Earth.
However, scientists prefer to be ready if a near-Earth asteroid’s trajectory should unexpectedly change following a surprising incident, like, one near-Earth asteroid crashing into another and showering huge chunks of garbage throughout the solar system.
