A gigantic asteroid almost half the size of Mount Everest is going to fly past Earth next month. But there is no need to worry as NASA says it’s not going to collide with our planet.
The asteroid named 52768 (1998 OR2), is about 1 to 2.5 miles wide. It is expected to pass within 3,908,791 miles, moving at 19,461 miles per hour. It is ‘large enough to cause global effects’, we are lucky as it is not going to hit Earth.
NASA discovered this asteroid in 1998, and is expected for Wednesday, April 29 at 4:56 AM ET. The information is provided by NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies that tracks Near-
NEAT Principal Investigator Eleanor Helin, said, “Our goal is to discover and track all the potentially dangerous asteroids and comets long before they are likely to approach Earth,”
This asteroid is big but it is not the largest asteroids to pass by Earth on close proximity. The largest asteroid to pass by Earth is the asteroid named 3122 Florence. It measured between two and a half and five and a half miles wide. 3122 Florence flew by Earth on September 1, 2017 and luckily missed colliding with Earth. It will now pass again on September 2, 2057.
