This Wednesday, encounter a giant asteroid that will whiz closest to the Earth at a phenomenal speed of 20,000mph. Dubbed as 2016 NF23, the asteroid has a diameter of 500 ft which is bigger compared to Great Pyramid of Giza Egypt which has a diameter of 451 ft and thus, NASA classified the object as ‘potentially hazardous asteroid’.
It was tagged as PHA because of its distance from the Earth that is 0.03377 astronomical units or say, three million miles from the Earth and NASA classified all the objects that come within the distance of 4.6 million miles from the Earth as potentially hazardous. To put things into perspective, the Sun is located 93 million miles away from the Earth.
But there’s nothing to worry about since the space rock doesn’t pose any danger to the Earth even after being tagged as PHA. This was later confirmed by NASA’s planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson who stated that 2016 NF23 will zip past the Earth without causing any damage. She further elaborates that the object was tagged as PHA because it comes close to five million miles of the Earth’s orbit.
Earlier this month, an asteroid the size of a bus i.e 15 meters zipped past the Earth at an incredibly close distance of just 20,636 miles and since it came from the Sun, it wasn’t detected until the next day when the asteroid zipped past the Earth continues its orbit ahead.
