Large Asteroid is Whizzing by Earth this Week

An Large Asteroid that is four times longer in diameter than the Empire State Building is approaching our planet. Though it is unlikely to strike, its size and proximity to Earth mean that astronomers and space agencies are keeping a close check on it. According to NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, the desolate giant is known as 1989 JA, or 7335, and is anticipated to miss us by about 10 times the typical distance between Earth and the Moon. That’s 2.5 million miles, more than enough to put people’s minds at ease who have nightmares about “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon.”

NASA experts admit that because 1989 JA is so enormous, they can’t safely dismiss it. “To put that in perspective, that’s 17 times faster than a bullet in the air. The Asteroid could go around the Earth in 45 minutes at this speed “According to Franck Marchis, chief scientific officer of the Unistellar telescope firm and senior planetary astronomer at the SETI Institute,

Astronomy enthusiasts will be able to see the Asteroid pass by at breakneck speed from telescopes in Chile and Australia. NASA launched DART, or the Double Redirection Test, in November to crash with two harmless designated Didymos (almost 800 meters wide) and Dimorphos (nearly 800 meters wide) (roughly 160 meters wide).

DART is meant to divert bits of Asteroid away from Earth’s gravitational pull, using the “kinetic impact” strategy to shield humanity from. The Asteroid remaining fragments should be tiny enough to burn up harmlessly in the planet’s atmosphere.