A house-sized (pretty big!!!) Asteroid with the code name 2012 TC4 is about to pass ‘damn close’ to Earth, tonight! This huge space rock was first spotted five years ago by the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii. Shortly after it disappeared yet it reemerged in July 2017 running towards us with the speed of 16,000mph / 20,000kph. That is 4.5 miles a second guys… huh – imagine that!
NASA and World’s Scientists have declared that the asteroid poses no threat and it will pass safely by, reaching it’s closest orb 15,000 – 30,000 miles from our blue-green planet, over Australia.
It may seeem far away but it’s not. This is where Earth’s satelites orb. Actually this Asteroid, is our best test – so far – to see how ready our defence mechanism is. Although astronomers believe that more than 90% of large asteroids have been monitored, it’s the smaller ones that actually pose a challenge. Because it’s harder to spot them.
“It’s a very fast-moving, relatively faint kind of object. Exactly the kind of object you’d expect to impact Earth. So it’s an excellent chance to test this thing out.” Peter Brown, professor of physics and astronomy at Western University in London, Ont., told CBC News.
Therefore this is a perfect exercise to monitor, track and probe threats like this. Are we prepared for a strike? This is a very serious issue for the safety of the whole planet. “We are going to use this asteroid to practice the system that would observe an asteroid, characterize it and compute how close it is going to come, in case some day we have one that is on the way inbound and might hit.” CNEOS manager Pal Chodas stated on BBC.
The Astreroid will return to Earth in 2050 and again in 2079 according to a researcher at the European Science Agency. According to NASA, no asteroid or other planetary oblject is currently expected to impact Earth at least for the next 100 years.
