Last Thursday, an asteroid as big as a Manhattan building flew by Earth, as predicted by NASA’s asteroid tracker.
The asteroid is now known as 2020 DB5. Despite being named after a well-known Aston Martin “James Bond” car, it is far larger than any automobile. According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it is bigger than the famous 432 Park Avenue and One Vanderbilt buildings in New York City.
According to a report, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab is monitoring the 2020 DB5 asteroid as it is the most massive near-Earth asteroid being tracked. The lab keeps track of asteroids and comets that come relatively close to Earth. According to the lab, the tracker detects any object that comes inside 4.6 million miles of Earth. Objects with a size greater than 150 meters that come into this region are classified as potentially hazardous objects.
In 2020, DB5 will go within around 2,680,000 kilometers of Earth at its closest. The usual distance between the Earth and the moon is approximately 239,000 miles, so although it may seem near, it is quite far.
The 2020 DB5 has made many previous close approaches to Earth, and this one won’t be its last. NASA predicts that the giant rock will not return until 2048. Our Aston Martin-branded visitor won’t fly by Jupiter until 2024.
According to JPost, on June 13, the asteroid 2022 WN4 flew near Earth. Its diameter is 260 meters (853 feet).
On June 13, an asteroid named 2023 LO also passed our planet. Its size is nearly 18 meters ( 59 feet) in circumference.
On Wednesday, June 14, asteroid 2023 LZ came within a few thousand kilometers of our planet. It is about 32 meters (105 feet) in circumference.
It’s not common for asteroids to crash onto Earth, but it does happen sometimes.
The teaching branch of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, the Davidson Institute of Science, has estimated that such a large asteroid would destroy at least an entire continent if it were to strike Earth. A global disaster of near-apocalyptic proportions is possible.
