A Large Asteroid Will Fly By Earth On April 29; Don’t Worry, It Won’t Hit Us
A big asteroid will pass the Earth on April 29, 2020. The asteroid (52768) 1998 will pass at a safe distance at some 4 million miles (6 million km), or about 16 times the Earth-moon distance. This asteroid will be the biggest to fly earth this year. Professional observatories have been pointing their telescopes at the huge space rock already. Astronomers with smaller telescopes will also have an opportunity to see it as a slow-moving star. Astronomers at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico have been studying the asteroid since April 8, as it’s traveled through space at 19,461 miles per hour (31,320 km/h). The high-resolution radar images from Arecibo uniquely revealed the overall shape of the asteroid. Asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 will not collide with the Earth. Asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 is the largest known of all big near-earth objects that’ll pass less than five times the earth-moon distance over the next two centuries!
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 28, 2020 02:49 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).