Humanity can rejoice knowing they will not go the way of the dinosaurs Tuesday.
A gigantic asteroid, identified as 7482 (1994 PC1), will pass 1.2 million miles away from Earth, making it close enough for some viewers with a telescope to catch a glimpse. The estimated size of the space rock is around 5,400 feet in diameter, which NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory described as a “bridge-sized” asteroid.
“FACT: There is no known threat from any asteroid for at least the next 100 years,” NASA wrote on social media Jan. 13.
However, if it were to hit, the asteroid would cause a “complete catastrophe,” destroying everything within a 25-mile radius, and the “amount of energy is 10,000 megatons of TNT. That’s more than a nuclear blast,” Franck Marchis, chief scientific officer at Unistellar and senior planetary astronomer at the SETI Institute, told USA Today.
FACT: There is no known threat from any asteroid for at least the next 100 years.
Our Planetary Defense Coordination Office constantly monitors potential threats from asteroids and other Near-Earth Objects. Follow @AsteroidWatch for updates. https://t.co/2Ym48RH37k
— NASA (@NASA) January 13, 2022
ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER POTATO-SHAPED PLANET
The asteroid is traveling at 43,754 mph, NASA said. EarthSky reported that its closest pass to Earth occurred at 4:51 p.m. EST.
The asteroid was first discovered by Robert McNaught on Aug. 9, 1974, at an observatory in Australia, and astronomers have been observing the asteroid and determining its orbit ever since, NASA records show.
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Three other asteroids are also expected to pass Earth on Tuesday, though not nearly as close as 7482. NASA reported that two of the other asteroids are approximately the size of an airplane at 150 and 70 feet in diameter each, while the third one is about 42 feet in diameter, about the size of a bus.
