According to NASA’s asteroid trackers, an asteroid twice the size as the Great Pyramid of Giza passed the Earth.
According to Express, NASA officials issued a statement in which they said that the asteroid made a so-called Earth Close Approach, meaning its trajectory brought the rock incredibly close to Earth, and it came scraping by around 11.48am UK time od 6.48 Eastern Time. The asteroid belongs to the Apollo-type space rock group, a group of rocky objects that are named after Asteroid 1862 Apollo.
It was first noticed on April 13, 2011, and it is considered that the asteroid passes around our planet ever since 1904
Nasa explained: “As they orbit the Sun, Near-Earth Objects can occasionally approach close to Earth. Note that a close passage astronomically can be very far away in human terms: millions or even tens of millions of kilometers.’’
NASA calculates that the asteroid may be twice the length of the Great Pyramid of Giza, just as tall as the Golden Gate suspension bridge in San Francisco at the upper end of the estimate, and at the lower end, it may be the size of Big Ben Clock tower in London.
An asteroid this big may be enough to destroy a big city and its surroundings but there is no need to panic because even at its closest, the asteroid is distanced from Earth from at least 2.92 million miles, or in other terms, the distance may be measured like the distance to the moon x12.
The asteroid will get further from Earth for now, and it is estimated that it will not past nearby until May 17, 2027, after that time it is expected that the asteroid will come to visit eight years later in May 2035.
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