A two-mile-wide asteroid moving at almost 20,000 miles per hour will pass close to Earth on April 29 and could be potentially hazardous to human civilization if by a small chance it changes course and hits Earth, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The asteroid called 52768 (1998 OR2), which is “large enough to cause global effects”, was found in observations made with the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking system, managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The hefty space rock has an estimated diameter of 1.1 to 2.5 miles, or about the width of Manhattan Island.
While an asteroid that size could wreak havoc if it crashed into Earth — prompting some alarmist and misinformed media reports — this asteroid poses no threat.
It’s the largest asteroid expected to zip by Earth within the next two months, but it’s not the largest ever, according to CNN.
Scientists estimate that on April 29 the asteroid will swoop about 3.9 million miles from Earth, according to a database maintained by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.
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An asteroid qualifies as “potentially hazardous” if its orbit ever intersects Earth’s orbit at a distance less than 4.6 million miles, according to NASA. That’s the average distance between Earth and the sun, but this does not mean it puts Earth in danger.
