US space agency, the National Aeronautics And Space Administration (NASA), has raised an alert about a huge and potentially very destructive asteroid that is heading toward Earth at extremely high speed. The space rock, which has been dubbed as Asteroid 535844 (2015 BY310), will make its closest Earth approach on Wednesday, Mar. 5, 2025.
The reason why NASA is tracking this asteroid is the fact that it will be coming very close to Earth. In fact, the danger is very much there as the asteroid has been classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA), according to the data supplied by various telescopes and the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), which did the data crunching. The agency has also carried out an impact hazard assessment and said it will come as close as 2,280,000 miles to Earth at its closest point.
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The asteroid is not expected to come any nearer and is set to fly by Earth without getting affected by the planet's gravitational pull.
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The asteroid belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids and apart from being a PHA it has also been dubbed as a near-Earth object (NEO). When it passes Earth, Asteroid will be travelling at a speed of 17583 miles per hour. An asteroid's high speed vis a vis the Earth, means the space rock packs a great amount of kinetic energy and that increases its destructive potential to quite a large extent. Another aspect that astronomers look at to judge its destructive potential is the angle of impact.
While NASA has deployed a lot of tech, its upcoming NEO Surveyor telescope will become the first space telescope specifically designed to hunt asteroids and comets that may be potential hazards to Earth. Other NASA instruments include Pan-STARRS, the Catalina Sky Survey and Planetary radar projects (including JPL's Goldstone Solar System Radar Group).
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