Asteroid that could have caused ‘violent sky explosion’ as powerful as 30 nukes zips past Earth
AN asteroid that threatened to blast Earth with fiery debris skimmed past our planet over the weekend.
The space rock was the size of a blue whale and zipped past at 14,000 miles per hour during a nerve-shredding flyby on Saturday, according to Nasa.
The US space agency dubbed the asteroid "2019 YB4" and said it passed at around 10:30am GMT on January 4.
It was classed as a "near-Earth object" (NEO) by Nasa, tens of thousands of which are tracked by scientists to ensure they don't collide with our planet.
Just a small change to YB4's trajectory could have sent it crashing into us, though at 86ft long it wasn't large enough to reach Earth's surface.
Instead, the rock would likely have exploded with the force of 30 nuclear bombs as it hit our atmosphere,
While most of the force would have been absorbed by the heavens, debris would likely have showered from the sky following the blast.
A similarly-sized asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013 reportedly shattered windows and injured 1,500 people.
Fortunately, YB4 soared past Earth from a safe distance during its approach.
According to Nasa, the asteroid passed within 780,000 miles of our planet – about three times the distance from Earth to the Moon.
Astronomers are currently tracking nearly 2,000 asteroids, comets and other objects that threaten our pale blue dot, and new ones are found every day.
Earth hasn't seen an asteroid of apocalyptic scale since the space rock that wiped out the dinosaurs 66million years ago.
However, smaller objects still capable of flattening an entire city crash into Earth every so often.
What's the difference between an asteroid, meteor and comet?
Here's what you need to know, according to Nasa...
- Asteroid: An asteroid is a small rocky body that orbits the Sun. Most are found in the asteroid belt (between Mars and Jupiter) but they can be found anywhere (including in a path that can impact Earth)
- Meteoroid: When two asteroids hit each other, the small chunks that break off are called meteoroids
- Meteor: If a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere, it begins to vapourise and then becomes a meteor. On Earth, it'll look like a streak of light in the sky, because the rock is burning up
- Meteorite: If a meteoroid doesn't vapourise completely and survives the trip through Earth's atmosphere, it can land on the Earth. At that point, it becomes a meteorite
- Comet: Like asteroids, a comet orbits the Sun. However rather than being made mostly of rock, a comet contains lots of ice and gas, which can result in amazing tails forming behind them (thanks to the ice and dust vapourising)
One a few hundred metres across that devastated 800 square miles of forest neat Tunguska in Siberia on June 30, 1908.
Luckily, Nasa doesn't believe any of the NEOs it keeps an eye on are on a collision course with our planet.
However, that could change in the coming months or years as the space agency constantly revises objects' predicted trajectories.
"Nasa knows of no asteroid or comet currently on a collision course with Earth, so the probability of a major collision is quite small," Nasa says.
"In fact, as best as we can tell, no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years."
Even if they were to hit our planet, the vast majority of asteroids would not wipe out life as we know it.
"Global catastrophes" are only triggered when objects larger than 3,000 feet smash into Earth, according to Nasa.
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In other news, it recently emerged that an asteroid obliterated early human civilisations in a catastrophic collision with Earth 13,000 years ago.
Scientists recently discovered a "Super-Earth" 31 light-years away that humans could one day colonise.
And, distant planets may host even more life than we have here on Earth, according to one shock study.
Are you worried about an asteroid strike? Let us know in the comments!
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