A large space rock...a huge asteroid threatens Earth next week
A large asteroid will approach Earth's orbit next week and is believed to be wider than the famous Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, USA.
According to media reports, NASA scientists will track the space rock with a diameter of one kilometer and is classified as a near-Earth object called 199145 (2005 YY128).
The asteroid is expected to touch the planet's orbit next week, and according to reports, the width of the asteroid is estimated to be between 570 and 1,300 meters.
The asteroid will approach Earth about 4.5 million kilometers (2.8 million miles) from Earth on February 16 with NASA not confident enough to say if it will actually crash into Earth's orbit and cause damage to the planet.
This comes just two weeks after another massive asteroid passed Earth in one of the closest encounters on record but had no effect.
Asteroid 2023 BU was only discovered on January 21 and was only 2,200 miles from Earth's surface as it passed through the southern tip of South America in the early morning hours of January 27.
This means that it is about 10 times closer than the world's communications satellites, which lie within 22,000 miles.
NASA says that asteroids less than 25 meters (82 feet) in diameter are likely to burn up as they enter Earth's atmosphere causing little or no damage to Earth, but this asteroid heading our way is much larger than that.
Although 199145 (2005 YY128) is much larger, NASA is not sure if the space rock will crash into Earth's orbit and impact Earth's orbit, but the US space agency says there is no need to panic.
Source : websites