An asteroid half the size of a football field will cross Earth in the closest proximity known to date on Feb/ 15, NASA confirmed.
NASA has confirmed this to be the closest encounter an asteroid has ever had with Earth. The distance between the two celestial bodies will be as little as 17,000 miles, reports The News Star. This distance is closer than some of the planet's weather and navigation satellites orbit. Though the encounter will not be visible to the naked eye, the asteroid will be closest to Earth at 1:24 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, the report suggests.
"An object of this size gets relatively this close to Earth every 40 years, but this is by far the closest in a very long time," said Don Wheeler, an associate professor of science at Louisiana Delta Community College.
Sharing details about the asteroid, Wheeler says it will be travelling at a speed of 4.8 miles per second and weighs 130,000 metric tons. However, NASA has confirmed that the chances of an impact with Earth are remote so people need not worry.
If there were to be an impact, Wheeler says that it would be of about 2.5 mega tons of energy. The pass will not be visible through the naked eye and it would be difficult to catch any of the action even with a very powerful telescope. People who are hoping to catch a glimpse of the asteroid, may get an opportunity in mid-March to easily spot a comet passing by the planet.
Click here to check out NASA's report on all objects that approach the earth on its Near Earth Object Program website.
