NASA Warning: A Huge Asteroid Bigger than London Eye is Approaching Earth on July 24

A Huge Asteroid Bigger than London Eye is Approaching Earth on July 24
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A Huge Asteroid Bigger than London Eye is Approaching Earth on July 24

Highlights

NASA has warned that on July 24 a huge asteroid "Asteroid 2020 ND" will move past our planet Earth.

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has warned that on July 24 a huge asteroid "Asteroid 2020 ND" will move past our planet Earth. It is also expected that two asteroids may zoom past our planet on Sunday. These two asteroids named by NASA are 2016 DY30 and 2020 ME3.

NASA said in a statement, "Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are currently defined based on parameters that measure the asteroid's potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth. Specifically, all asteroids with a minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) of 0.05 au or less are considered PHAs."

As per NASA, asteroid 2020 ND is around 170 metre-long will be near 0.034 astronomical units (5,086,328 kilometres) to Earth. The asteroid is travelling at a speed of 48,000 kilometres per hour. The distance from the earth is what classifying this asteroid as "potentially dangerous".

2016 DY30 is heading towards Earth at a speed of 54,000 kilometres per hour while 2020 ME3 is travelling at 16,000 kilometres per hour. The 2016 DY30 is the smaller among these two asteroids as it is 15 feet wide.

The 2016 DY30 will be as near as around 0.02306 astronomical units to Earth which is equal to 3.4 million kilometres. The flanking approach of the bigger asteroid will be on July 19 at 10:02 AM IST. It has been categorised as an Apollo asteroid because it crosses Earth's path while travelling around the sun.

The 2020 ME3 will be far away from Earth when it reaches the planet at 02:51 AM IST the next day (July 21). The smaller asteroid distance expected from the Earth is about 0.03791 astronomical units which is equal to 5.6 million kilometres. It is called an Amor asteroid as it does not cross Earth's path and only flies by Earth on several occasions. Though, these two asteroids don't pose a threat to our planet.

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