Asteroid Alert! Giant Asteroid 2019 OU1 To Zoom Past Earth This Month

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Asteroid 2006 QQ23 just zipped past our Earth, last week, within a distance of 4.6 million miles of Earth, moving at a distance of 10,400 miles per hour. And now another giant asteroid, named 2019 OU1, is expected to hurtle past Earth this month. The asteroid is moving at a speed of 18 kilometres per second and is sized at 160 meters (524 feet) in diameter.

As per NASA's CNEOS (Center for Near-Earth Object Studies), asteroid 2019 OU1 is expected to move past Earth on August 28 this month where it will be at a close distance of only 0.00687 astronomical units or 639,000 miles away from Earth. However, the asteroid is simply expected to move past Earth and hasn’t been labelled ‘dangerous’ or ‘hazardous’ by NASA.

There are certain asteroids that have been classified deadly recently such as the   Apophis 99942 a 370 metre-wide near Earth space rock that can spark a major tsunami on collision with Earth, wiping out the entire west coast of North America. Warning for Asteroid Apophis has been made by a famous American astrophysicist, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who has predicted that if asteroid Apophis manages to pass through the gravitational keyhole, it could cause a massive damaging impact on Earth. Another city-killer Asteroid 2019  had been indicated as potentially damaging by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, one that was huge enough to wipe out an entire city.

Given the potential harm that asteroids can cause to Earth, NASA has been coming up with plans underway to better defend Earth from asteroids. For instance, there’s a development of a gargantuan spacecraft ongoing that can hit away the different space bodies approaching our Earth by changing the overall trajectories of these asteroids. NASA also has a planetary defense technique,  namely, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which is aimed at protecting Earth from these asteroids. Keeping in mind the fact that asteroids keep zooming past Earth almost on a weekly basis, these initiatives by NASA seem to be headed the right way.