Nasa warned us about a giant asteroid coming towards Earth which can make a ‘close approach’ this weekend.
Nasa’s Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies suggests that the asteroid is known as 2008 TZ3, and it will pass Earth on Sunday around 6.37 am GMT.
The asteroid measure around 490m in width and roughly around 0.219km-0.490km in diameter.Which means it can easily be the size of two football pitches.
This is more than the distance between the Earth and the moon, around 385,000km. Therefore we will probably be alright.
However, scientists are considering the space rock as ‘potentially hazardous due to its size because an asteroid of that size could cause devastating results if it hits Earth.
Nasa explains Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) based on parameters that measure the asteroid’s potential to make close approaches to the Earth that can be considered threatening.
Therefore, all asteroids within the range of 7479894km of Earth are considered PHAs.
For example, the meteor that erased the dinosaurs from the Earth’s surface was about 10km to 15km wide.
In 1908, another asteroid around 100m to 200m in diameter struck ern Siberia, destroying the entire forests.
This, therefore, isn’t the first time that an asteroid this big has had a close call with our planet earth.
In February, an asteroid four times as large as the Shard crossed paths with our planet. However, fortunately, nothing terrible happened, and we were there to see it the following day.
