Is a large asteroid heading in direction of Earth? All you want to know

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A big asteroid is anticipated to fly safely over our planet on July 25 at round 3 pm (IST). Named “2008 GO20″”, the near-Earth asteroid could also be about 200 meters in size, bigger than a soccer subject.

According to NASA’s estimates, it’ll go close to the Earth at a velocity of 8.2 km per second and will likely be about three to 4 million kilometers from our planet. This is about eight to 9 instances the gap between the Earth and the Moon.

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2008 GO20’s newest voyage occurred on June 20, 2008, and is anticipated to fly once more on July 25, 2034.

What are Near-Earth Objects NEOs?

According to NASA, NEOs are asteroids and comets that come near Earth. Most of those are NEO asteroids and are known as Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). The NEAs are additional subdivided into Atira, Aten, Apollo and Amor based mostly on their distances and axes.

2008 GO20 is assessed as an Apollo NEO. Apollos have an orbit close to our Earth and are additionally known as Earth-crossers after they cross the Earth’s orbit. They are named after the Apollo asteroid of 1862.

Is 2008 GO20 a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA)?

Near-Earth asteroids that fly beneath 0.05 astronomical models or 7.5 million km away are known as doubtlessly hazardous asteroids. Since 2008 GO20 will fly from 0.02 to 0.03 au away, that is a PHA. An astronomical unit is roughly 150 million km, or roughly the gap between the Earth and the Sun.

Is this a uncommon occasion?

No. According to NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, six NEOs are anticipated to fly previous Earth at a distance of lower than 0.05 a.u. on July 21.

Following the go to of 2008 GO20 on July 24, the NEOs named 2021 OF, 2020 BW12 and 2019 YM6 are anticipated to fly close to Earth on July 26, July 27 and July 31, respectively.

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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS

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