NASA alert! Asteroid size of 25-storey building approaching Earth at a speed of...on THIS date, check details

A gigantic asteroid, the size of a 25-storey building is fastly approaching the earth and it has already reached very close to the earth. Its nearest location towards the planet was on Wednesday, May 28, that is, today. The Asteroid JR 2025 reached the closest to earth at 08:40 AM IST. However, much to everyone’s relief, NASA has informed that the asteroid will not hit earth as it missed the planet by 4.6 million kilometres. However, this is not a far distance and is considered quite close in cosmic terms, as much to raise heartbeats. The closeness is quite dangerous as this asteroid still comes in the category of those which can be harmful for us if they change their course.  

Asteroid approaching earth

The asteroid is 250 feet (76 metres) in length and is considered an Apollo-class near-Earth object (NEO). Its speed towards the Earth is 40, 800 km/hr which means that Asteroid JR 2025 can make a single round of Earth in an hour at this speed. The orbits of Apollo asteroids are such that they come in the path of Earth around the Sun. Space agencies closely observe these group of asteroids to monitor their path to know if they have the potential to collide with Earth.  

After monitoring the path of 2025 JR, scientists have not found this to be “potentially hazardous”, that is, if the asteroids are 460 feet or 140 metres but it is still considered harmful seeing its massive size. 

Asteroids like JR 2025 can be very dangerous if they hit the earth as they can destroy trillions of hectares of land. The consequences can be catastrophic. Due to its speed the consequences of its collision on earth can have the exact effect of explosion of several nuclear bombs. Uncountable lives can be lost and this can create widespread destruction. Even big and massive wars cannot create such effects what this one asteroid could if it hit the earth. 

In 1908, the Tunguska event occurred when a massive space rock roughly the size of 160-200 feet exploded over Siberia, near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia. This explosion, between 3 and 50 megatons, destroyed 2,000 square kilometres of forest, felling 80 million trees, a region bigger than Delhi.