‘Potentially hazardous’ asteroid to pass close to the Earth

A ‘potentially hazardous asteroid’ is set to pass extremely close to Earth, travelling at 56,000 miles per hour.

What sounds like an Armageddon-style end-of-world movie, an Asteroid the size of the Golden Gate Bridge will hurtle within a hairs breadth of our planet on Sunday, November 29. The scary proximity with Earth has lead to NANA labelling it a PHA – potentially hazardous asteroid.

Officially named 2000 WO107, the asteroid measures 0.51 kilometres in diameter and over 800 metres high – the same height as the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa of Dubai.

However, experts at spacereference.org say there is no need to cancel your dinner plans this weekend, as the asteroid will pass us a comfortable 4,302,775 km away.

‘2000 WO107 orbits the sun every 318 days (0.87 years), coming as close as 0.20 AU and reaching as far as 1.62 AU from the sun,’ explains spacereference.org

‘Its orbit is highly elliptical. 2000 WO107 is about 0.5 kilometers in diameter, making it small in absolute terms, but larger than ~97% of asteroids, comparable in size to the Golden Gate Bridge.’

_____________________________________________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to read this news article “‘Potentially hazardous’ asteroid to pass close to the Earth”. For more UK daily news, Spanish daily news and Global news stories, visit the Euro Weekly News home page.

Author badge placeholder
Written by

Sarah Keane

Former teacher and health services manager with a Degree in English, Sarah moved to Spain from Southern Ireland with her husband, who runs his own car rental business, in 2019. She is now enjoying a completely different pace and quality of life on the Costa Blanca South, with wonderful Spanish and expat friends in Cabo Roig. Sarah began working with Euro Weekly News in 2020 and loves nothing more than bringing all the latest national and international news to her local community.

Comments