An asteroid, possibly the size of LAX, will fly by the Earth in April
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was 10 km. in diameter, more than twice the length of this one.
By ZACHARY KEYSERAsteroid illustrative(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
A massive asteroid named 52768 (1998 OR2), with an average estimated diameter of the length of the Belmont Stakes, will be flying past Earth toward the end of April. Exact fly-by time is predicted for April 29 at 4:56 a.m. EST.The asteroid is forecast to measure 1.8 km.-4.1 km. when it finally screams by the earth at 8.7 km per second (19,400 mph), 6.3 million km (3.9 million miles) away. At its smallest estimate, it will be the size of Monaco, and at its largest it will be almost as large as Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).According to NASA, there is no possibility of this asteroid colliding with the earth. NASA further states that there are no comets or asteroids in space that are currently a on collision course with Earth, and none are projected to hit our world any time for the several centuries according to their estimates.The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was 10 km. in diameter, two to five times longer than this one. It is believed that the impact of that asteroid threw so much moisture and earth into the air that it began blocking out the sun, lowering temperatures to being unlivable conditions for the dinosaurs.“Objects close to and larger than one kilometer can cause damage on a global scale. They can trigger earthquakes, tsunamis, and other secondary effects that extend far beyond the immediate impact area,” according to the National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Plan. Astronomers estimate that there is only a 1 in 50,000 chance of an object of this size hitting the earth every century.A mile-wide asteroid striking the earth at around 30,000 mph, would be roughly equal to the effect of a 1 million megaton bomb. For scale, if an asteroid the size of a house were to hit the earth at that speed it would have the effect of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II, according to HowStuffWorks.The planetoid, first identified in 1998, is being tracked by NASA's Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) system, and has been classified as a "potentially hazardous object" due to its trajectory as it approaches Earth's orbit. Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are classified as objects that travel within 50 million km. of the earth's orbit.One of the largest asteroids to have ever flown by the earth was 3122 Florence (1981 ET3), which was estimated to be 2.45 km. in diameter. It passed our world at a distance of about 7 million km. (4.4m. miles) on September 1, 2017, about 10% farther away than 1998 OR2 is expected to pass. It is projected to return on September 2, 2057.
