The US National Space Agency, NASA, has confirmed that three asteroids the size of skyscrapers, two of which have passed and one more will pass close to Earth in the coming days.
The findings were published by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology. JPL revealed the location of the space rocks through the Asteroid Watch dashboard, with two of the three (2012 DK31 and 2006 BE55) marked as “dangerous”. The agency further explained that “potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) are currently defined based on parameters that measure the asteroid’s potential to approach the range that threatens the Earth.”
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This is how we will know if an asteroid threatens the Earth (Photo: EngImage)
Asteroid 2012 DK31
This space rock, named 2012 DK31, already flew by the Earth yesterday, on February 27th. It reached a distance of 4.8 million km from our planet, with the diameter of the rock comparable to a 40-story skyscraper, and it passed at a speed of 55,900 km/h.
Asteroid 2006 BE55
On Tuesday (yesterday), February 28, another PHA approached the orbit of our planet, according to NASA. It passed within 3.5 million km from Earth and the diameter of the asteroid is 137 meters. The extraterrestrial rock is moving at a speed of 47,960 km/h.
Asteroid 2021 QW
On Friday, March 3, asteroid 2021 QW will approach Earth within a safe distance of 5.3 million km. This 76-meter-diameter space rock will be traveling at 43,497 km/h. Although this asteroid is not large enough to be designated as a PHA, it still comes close to Earth every few years.
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