Massive Asteroid To Fly Very Close To Earth Tomorrow; Here's All You Need To Know

A giant asteroid almost the size of Mount Everest will fly by very close to Earth tomorrow. But despite the speculation in social media and doomsday prediction, it is not going to hit the earth.

Asteroid, illustration/ Getty Images

New Delhi: A giant asteroid almost the size of Mount Everest will flyby very close to Earth tomorrow. But despite the speculation in social media and doomsday prediction, it is not going to hit the earth. Named as 52768 (1998 OR2), the asteroid is about 2.5 miles wide and will be within 3.9 million miles (6.3 million kilometers) of our planet. According to reports at its closest approach to earth, the asteroid will still be 16 times further away than the moon from the earth. Asteroids are rocky objects in space that are leftovers from the formation of solar systems. These objects vary in size and shape and orbit the sun and some planets.  Asteroids frequently fly past the earth and some even come very close to the planet and even collided with the planet in the past. In 2019 scientists were caught off guard when an asteroid ‘2019 OK' had come as close 65,000 km of our planet’s surface. The asteroid was observed by NASA’s Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) system. The Arecibo Observatory has also captured a radar image of 1998 OR2 which they shared on their Twitter page.

#TeamRadar and the @NAICobservatory staff are taking the proper safety measures as we continue observations. This week we have been observing near-Earth asteroid 1998 OR2, which looks like it's wearing a mask! It's at least 1.5 km across and is passing 16 lunar distances away! pic.twitter.com/X2mQJCT2Qg

— Arecibo Radar (@AreciboRadar) April 18, 2020

According to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, the flyby is expected to occur at 5:56 am. ET (3:26 pm IST) on Wednesday. Although the 1998 OR2 has been classified as a potentially hazardous object due to its close approach to earth, it will not cause any collision.