10:13 PM Friday, January 05, 2024
The US space agency NASA has reduced the fears that have spread recently about the possibility that an asteroid will collide with Earth this year and eliminate human life there.
The asteroid that raised concerns is called 2007 FT3, and was first spotted for just over one day 16 years ago, before it disappeared.
The asteroid was officially called the “Lost Asteroid,” and NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies identified about 89 potential impacts of this asteroid, starting from October 3, 2024, to October 4, 2119.
Fortunately, the chance of the missing asteroid colliding with our planet is about 1 in 11.5 million.
A NASA spokesperson told The Standard: “There are no known threats of asteroid impacts on Earth at any time in the next century. NASA and its partners diligently monitor the skies to find, track and classify asteroids and near-Earth objects, including those that may come close to Earth.” .
He added: “Planetary scientists define the approaches of asteroids that come within 45 million kilometers of Earth’s orbit as close approaches. The larger the asteroid, the easier it is for planetary defense experts to find it, which means that its orbits around the Sun are usually very well known and understood.” For years or even decades.
Although the asteroid’s weight of 54 million tons and its estimated height (314 meters) make it look scary, it is small by cosmic standards.
It is known that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was about 12 kilometers wide, weighed nearly one trillion tons, and collided with the Earth at a speed of about 72 thousand km/hour. The power of the explosion reached about 10 billion atomic bombs, according to the Mirror newspaper.
It is believed that it struck land 38 km off the port of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The resulting crater is more than (185 km) wide and (32 km) deep, half of which is under water and the rest is covered by rainforests.
This space rock played an important role in the extinction of the Cretaceous and Paleogene era, which eliminated nearly three-quarters of plant and animal species, including the largest land animals ever. Some were burned alive or drowned, but most starved to death.
The asteroid had global consequences, spewing huge amounts of dust, sulfur and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The dust and sulfur formed a cloud that reflected sunlight and greatly reduced the Earth’s temperature.
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