By Aaron Hindhaugh • Updated: 28 Jun 2023 • 15:43 • 1 minute read
Asteroids have been known to hit Earth/Shutterstock Images
A huge asteroid is currently hurtling its way towards Earth that is the size of 10 buses and it’s travelling at an incredible 26,000 miles per hour.
According to NASA, the asteroid is the same size as 10 buses stacked end to end (160 metres) which shows the sheer size of this amazing ball of rock and to put it into more context, that makes it significantly bigger than both Big Ben and the London Eye.
NASA have revealed their latest findings about this asteroid which will be approaching Earth in less than 24 hours, however, they aren’t alarmed as they believe it will fly past everyone at about 9 AM on Wednesday morning.
When this huge asteroid gets near Earth it will be going at a scary 26,000 miles per hour, so catching a glimpse would be next to impossible given the speed.
While NASA aren’t scare-mongering people by saying it’s hurtling towards Earth, it won’t impact anything in day-to-day life or even the atmosphere around our planet as the asteroid will never get any closer than 2.1 million miles.
Despite the asteroid being extremely far away from Erath, in fact, it is said to be nine times as far away as the moon is to our planet, NASA are still having to track its path and class it as a near-Earth object.
‘NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighbourhood,’ NASA said.
The main reason why scientists are said to be so fascinated by asteroids and comets is that despite being first formed 4.6 billion years ago with the solar system, they are the only thing in the system to have never changed their form or what they are made up of.
An asteroid must be classed as ‘potentially hazardous’ if it comes within 4.65 million miles of Earth, so this asteroid, which is in fact called ‘2013 WV44’, doesn’t even come close to being a threat to our planet, although it could potentially enter the same orbit as Earth at some point.
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Qualified and experienced journalist covering all aspects of news and sport. Specialist in both Men's and Women's football with increasing coverage of golf and tennis.
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