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There have been many asteroid sightings this year, these sightings reveal the asteroids that seem to be approaching the Earth. NASA recently spotted an asteroid traveling at a fast rate towards Earth with an expected approach sometime after the Christmas season.
Express reports that NASA’s asteroid trackers caught sight of an asteroid, referred to as CH59, that is traveling towards Earth at a rate of around 27, 450 miles per hour. Experts say that this asteroid will make a close encounter with our planet right after Christmas, on the 26th December.
The asteroid in question is about 2000 feet in size, which is about equivalent to China’s Canton Tower and the Sears Tower in Chicago. With an asteroid in this size, it can potentially hit an entire continent if it ever crashlands on Earth. Millions of people would become casualties and there would be destruction at a catastrophic scale.
The 2018 White House report on asteroid threats says that any space-originated object measuring 400 meters high and 1.6 kilometers wide is already a “continental threat.” NASA has then labeled CH59 as both a Near-Earth Object (NEO) and a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA).
To more asteroid news, Express also reports that an asteroid named 2019 WH2 will also be making a close encounter with Earth. NASA’s prediction for this particular asteroid is that it will not hit, but near-miss the planet by 0.00873 astronomical units. An astronomical unit measures to 93 million miles or 149.6 million kilometers which is the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
This means that 2019 WH2 will near-missing the Earth by 1.3 million kilometers or 811, 504 miles when it flies by the planet. Naturally, 2019 WH2 is labeled as a Near-Earth Object but is not as big as the previously mentioned asteroid, the CH59.
NASA assures everyone that when they see asteroids making a close approach to Earth, it is usually still very far away in human terms. “Close” in this aspect, would still mean millions of kilometers away, so it is not something to lose sleep over nor worry about. Adding to that, asteroids the size of WH2 are not big enough to make a landing without destroying the Earth’s atmosphere in case they do make an unannounced entrance. It is likely that this kind of asteroid will only burn up upon entry.
