The giant asteroid, dubbed Asteroid 2019 LA, is taller than Big Ben’s clocktower and is flying in our general direction right now. Discovered on May 26 this year, the space rock is expected to near-miss our planet later tonight (Friday, June 7). According to NASA, the space rock is barreling through the void of space at around 22.28km per second or 51,000mph (82,080kph). At these breakneck speeds, the asteroid will approach the Earth at 9.40pm BST or 4.40pm Eastern Time.
Asteroid LA is an Apollo-type rocky object, with an orbital path similar to asteroid 1862 Apollo.
The orbit will bring it close to Earth tonight for the first and likely last time in the foreseeable future.
As a result of this approach, NASA’s asteroid trackers at the California Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have dubbed 2019 LA a Near-Earth Object (NEO).
NEOs are all comets and asteroids orbiting the Sun from a distance of 120.8 million miles (194.5 million km).
READ MORE: How often do asteroids hit Earth?
Occasionally, NEOs will cross paths with the Earth’s own orbit of the Sun and if they come close enough, they fly by on a so-called Earth Close Approach trajectory.
NASA explained: “As they orbit the Sun, Near-Earth Objects can occasionally approach close to Earth.
“Note that a ‘close’ passage astronomically can be very far away in human terms: millions or even tens of millions of kilometres.”
And to further complicate matters, the rogue space rock is as long as six London double-decker buses lined-up in a row.
READ MORE: Watch a major asteroid DESTROY Earth in fiery crash simulation
According to NASA, Asteroid LA measures somewhere between 164ft to 360.8ft (50m to 110m) in diameter.
An object this big would tower over the Statue of Liberty in New York and match 75 Queen Size beds in a row.
If the asteroid were to hit the Earth tonight, it would likely wipe out a city and its inhabitants.
Even towards the lower end of NASA’s estimate, the rock would be big enough to cause widespread damage.
READ MORE: Rogue comets from another system can contain 'alien material'
Thankfully, there is no need to panic because the asteroid is expected to safely pass the Earth with striking.
NASA estimates the space rock will miss us tonight by about 0.03555 astronomical units.
One astronomical unit is the equivalent of the distance between the Earth and the Sun or 93 million miles (149.6 million km).
This means Asteroid LA will skim our home planet tonight from a distance of 3.3 million miles (5.3 million km).
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1137611/NASA-asteroid-Asteroid-2019-LA-scrape-Earth-close-approach-NASA-news
2019-06-07 12:50:00Z
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