An asteroid known as 2020 OL4 will zoom through Earth on Saturday, August 8th. The asteroid will come increasingly close to Earth at a distance of 7 million kilometers. While this may seem like a great distance, in astronomical terms it is a hair of breadth.
According to NASA, the asteroid is 37 meters long, almost one and a half times larger than a 24 meter blue whale – the largest living being on our planet.
The space agency has also revealed that it will travel at a top speed of 10.8 kilometers per second – as much as 38,880 kilometers per hour. At that speed, it could travel across the Earth in an hour.
According to NASA, asteroid 2020 OL4 is a NEO (Near Eath Object), making NASA the perfect opportunity to study the history of the solar system.
NASA said on its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) website: “NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been pulled into orbit by the gravitational pull of nearby planets, allowing them to enter Earth’s orbit.
“The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is largely due to their status as the relatively unchanged remnant of remnants from the formation process of the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago.
“The giant outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) formed from an agglomeration of billions of comets and the remaining pieces and pieces from this formation process are the comets we see today.
“In the same way, today’s asteroids are the pieces and pieces left over from the initial agglomeration of the inner planets that comprise Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.”
While the chance of a large asteroid hitting Earth is small – NASA believes there is a 300,000 chance each year that a space rock that could cause regional damage will hit – the devastating prospect is not impossible.
This is why there are now plans in the pipeline that could help Earth get rid of asteroids.
NASA is currently studying Asteroid Bennu, where its OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft arrived last year.
Part of the reason NASA is sending the OSIRIS Rex spacecraft is there to gather more information about the space rock that is 500 meters long.
NASA fears that the asteroid, which has the potential to wipe out a land on Earth, could hit our planet within the next 120 years, with the next near flyby in 2135.
