The US space agency is warning of a salvo of space rocks headed for Earth, ranging in size from a paltry 10 meters in diameter all the way up to a positively petrifying 213.
NASA warns of stadium-sized asteroid heading towards Earth
STEPANAKERT, FEBRUARY 22, ARTSAKHPRESS: When not keeping a close eye on its Perseverance rover, which touched down on Mars this week, NASA is busy monitoring the sky for potential threats to life on Earth – namely asteroids. And this week is no exception, as five such space rocks are due to buzz the planet we call home, RT.com reports.
On Sunday, the 10-meter asteroid 2021 DD1 and the 61-meter asteroid 2021 DK1 will shoot past Earth at a safe distance of 1.6 million kilometers and six million kilometers, respectively.
However, they are just the warm-up act for what NASA describes as the “stadium-sized” asteroid 2020 XU6, which measures some 213 meters in diameter. To put that into perspective, it’s twice as tall as London’s Big Ben and two and a half times as tall as the Statue of Liberty.
2020 XU6 is travelling at a speed of 8.4 kilometers per second or 30,240 kilometers an hour. Given that the circumference of the Earth is 40,075 kilometers, it would take the asteroid a little over an hour to complete a lap of the entire planet.
