Mumbai, July 24: Three massive asteroids are headed in the earth’s direction and they will be flying by really close to it. In fact, they will be closer to the earth than the moon is on July 24. The closest of these asteroids — called 2019 OD — is expected to fly past the Earth at a distance of 3,53,050 kilometres. The moon is on the other hand at a distance of Moon (which is -3.84 lakh kilometres away from the earth). So asteroid 2019 OD will be closer to the earth than the moon is today. NASA to Crash Spacecraft into Asteroid in 2022

The two other asteroids which NASA predicts will make closes approaches of Earth are a 361-feet-wide rock called 2015 HM10 and the 561-foot-wide 2019 OE. NASA has however not released any official details about the asteroid.

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According to a Mirror report, the 2019 OD, has a diameter of up to 120 metres and is travelling at a speed of 19.17 kilometres per second (42,882 miles per hour). The report mentions that NASA has said there is currently no known asteroid will impact the earth in the next century. However, NASA chief Jim Bridenstine had warned that a killer asteroid could smash into the Earth within our lifetime unless we do more to protect the planet.

The US space agency NASA recently said that it will launch a spacecraft that will collide with an asteroid in 2022 to demonstrate a planetary defence technique. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will get one chance to hit its target, a small moonlet in the binary asteroid system Didymos.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 24, 2019 01:09 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).