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An asteroid the size of a car almost missed our planet last Sunday. It wasn’t until six hours after his passage that he was noticed by NASA.
The asteroid, named 2020 QG, passed Earth just 2,950 kilometers away on Sunday. That is extremely dense. What’s more, never before has an asteroid skimmed this close to our planet without hitting Earth. In addition, he escaped the all-seeing eye of NASA. It wasn’t until six hours later that they knew that 2020 QG was over. “The asteroid approached our planet unnoticed from the direction of the sun. We didn’t see it coming, ”NASA expert Paul Chodas admits to Business Insider.
No danger
2020 QG is 2 meters long and 5.5 meters wide. This makes it comparable to the size of a car. NASA does emphasize that had the asteroid hit our planet, it would likely have burned up in the atmosphere and thus pose no threat. “About once a year, an asteroid of this size flies through the atmosphere and burns up completely before reaching Earth’s surface. Every 2,000 years, a meteorite the size of a football hits the ground and causes significant damage. Once every few million years, an object large enough to threaten humanity hits our planet. Impact craters on the earth are proof of this ”, it sounds.
Newly-discovered asteroid ZTF0DxQ passed less than 1/4 Earth diameter yesterday, making it the closest-known flyby that didn’t hit our planet.@renerpho
Simulation: https://t.co/a81R100OwV
Higher-res GIF: https://t.co/4Wxn0YNpVb pic.twitter.com/SMtVRbjYOA— Tony Dunn (@tony873004) August 17, 2020
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