NASA has warned that an asteroid which is thought to be 10 times bigger than this year's Rockefeller Christmas tree in New York is on its way to Earth.
Though the asteroid is likely to stay four million miles away from our planet, this isn’t actually as far away as it seems.
In fact, any fast-moving space object which comes within 4.65million miles is considered to be "potentially hazardous" by space organisation.
This is why the space agency has said it will keep a close eye on the asteroid and added that it is expected to make a "close approach."
What are NEOs and why are they dangerous?
NASA regards any fast-moving object passing by within 120million miles of Earth as a Near-Earth Object (NEO).
A minor change in the trajectory of these objects could be disastrous, which is why many NEOS are always tracked and monitored by the space agency to see if any are on a collision course with our planet.
The Christmas-tree sized asteroid called Asteroid 2016 TR54 is expected to shoot by Earth at 35,000 miles per hour on Christmas Eve morning.
Why has NASA’s space walk been cancelled and is the Russian missile a threat?
Another category of objects are the Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA), which is given to space rocks larger than approximately 100million, that can come closer to Earth than 750,00,000 kilometres.
Are asteroids always dangerous?
No, asteroids are not always dangerous. Any space rock smaller than an average car will likely destroy itself in the atmosphere and is not a threat to the planet.
NASA believes that it's only once every 2,000 years that a meteor the size of a field is likely to make its way through the atmosphere and cause destruction.
It's only once every million years that any space object likely to threaten life on Earth will even appear on the radar.
Search for alien life has been 'wrong' the entire time, says astronomer
For example, the last asteroid that caused mass destruction of life was the one that wiped out dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
This doesn't mean that there hasn't been disasters on a smaller scale like the few hundred feet asteroid which destroyed 800 square miles of forest near Tunguska in Siberia on June 30, 1908.
Source: Read Full Article
