Doomsday on Christmas Day? Asteroid Bigger Than the Statue of Liberty to Fly Past Earth on the Festivity, Says NASA

Will the Earth come to an end on Christmas? Is it going to be doomsday? An asteroid bigger than the Statue of Liberty will fly past Earth at 8:20 pm GMT on Christmas Day, according to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Studies. The asteroid, called 2014 SD224, will come within 0.02019 astronomical units, or nearly 1.9 million miles, from the Earth's surface. 2014 SD224 has a diameter between 302 and 690 feet (92 to 210 metres), which means it could be 305 feet. As 2014 SD224 flies past Earth, it will be travelling at a speed of 10 kilometres per second, more than 22,000 miles per hour. It would be 30 times the speed of sound. Despite being around eight times further out than the Moon, the asteroid is classed as a near-Earth object (NEO) which is tracked by the space agency. Massive Asteroid Apophis to Cause Doomsday by 2068? ‘God of Chaos’ Gains Speed As It Travels Towards Earth!

2014 SD224 can be tracked on NASA's website and is at a distance of 1.9 million miles away. It is not expected to do damage. Don't expect to see 501647 flying above the clouds as it won't be visible from Earth. NASA was quoted as saying, "NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighbourhood." Hayabusa2 Mission: Japan Space Agency Finds Ample Soil, Gas from Asteroid.

It is estimated that there are about 25,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs) larger than 460 feet (140 metres). NASA added, "Composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter." Monster Asteroid ‘Apophis’, Named After Egyptian ‘God of Chaos’, Will Hit the Earth: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

They further said, "The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is due largely to their status as the relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process some 4.6 billion years ago." There is as an estimated 1,000 NEOs larger than 3,280 feet highlighting the need to keep track of these space rocks.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 24, 2020 07:55 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).