An asteroid, the size of a Boeing-747, is heading towards Earth and may collide with the Earth’s orbit on October 7 (Wednesday), world’s premier space agency NASA has said. According to asteroid monitoring centre of NASA, the asteroid named 2020 RK2 is expected to cross the Earth’s orbit but it will be about 2,380,000 miles away from our planet.
The US-based space agency, however, expressed hope that the asteroid would not cause any damage. The las asteroid which came very near to Earth was on September 24 when the celestial body zoomed past Earth at a distance of about 13,000 miles the surface of our planet.
The 2020 RK2 asteroid is the size of a Boeing-747. The American space centre’s, Near-Earth Objects (NEO), said that the asteroid may collide with the orbit of the Earth on October 7. Astronomers said that the asteroid was first spotted by NASA in September.
NASA said that the asteroid is around 118 to 265 foot wide and it is moving at a speed of 6.68 kilometres per second. NASA said that 2020 RK2 may cross the Earth at a great distance and it is highly unlikely that sky-watchers would be able to spot the celestial body from the Earth.
NASA is expecting that at least five asteroids would zoom past the Earth by Thursday. Before 2020 RK2, another asteroid 2020 RR2 will fly past Earth at a safe distance of 6.2 million kilometres, on Wednesday.
Asteroids are rocky objects that orbit the Sun and most of them are found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. According to scientists, the majority of these asteroids were formed about 4.5 billion years ago.
