A quite engrossing asteroid a small rocky body orbiting the sun which was 1.9km wide safely flies past earth. This asteroid 1992 OR2 was discovered on 24 july 1998. It had an orbital period of 1,334 days.It flew at 19,461 miles per hour at 39,08,791 miles of earth.But no harm done because this distance is 16 times farther than the distance between our planets and moon.
Giant asteroid 1998 OR2 set to fly past Earth safely
It is verifiable that this asteroid was on NASA’s list of “potentially hazardous asteroids” and it was large enough to cause notable damage in the event of impact to earth.
If this asteroid would have hit the earth surface then it would have led to a threat to humanity and also a massive global destruction which might have resulted in earthquakes and tsunamis if water bodies or water basins were hit.
It is an amusing thing to notice that during covid-19 pandemic, this asteroid seemed to have worn a mask as if it was protecting itself from the catastrophe caused by the dangerous virus on the planet.
Nasa says that anything that flies within 120 million miles of our planet a” Near Earth Object” (NEO) should be tracked so that it does not cause any harm to mankind.
Flaviane Venditti, a research scientist at the lookout, said: “The radar measurements allow us to know more precisely where the asteroid will be in the future, including its future close approaches to Earth.’’“In 2079, asteroid 1998 OR2 will pass Earth about 3.5 times closer than it will this year, so it is important to know its orbit precisely.”
So it is a moment of merry that this asteroid flew past the earth fortunately and did not cause any damage or destruction.
