NASA says large asteroid will fly by Earth in April

9 Mar 2020

NASA says large asteroid will fly by Earth in April

NASA says large asteroid will fly by Earth in AprilNASA says that on 29 April, a large asteroid will fly by Earth but it will not hit us. You may have read about it briefly in our previous article.

This asteroid called 52768 (1998 OR2), is estimated to be between 1.7 km and 4 km (approximately) wide. That is about half the size of Mount Everest.

What do we know about 52768 (1998 OR2)'s flyby?

According to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, the flyby is expected to happen to 29 April, at 4:56 a.m. E.T (2:26 p.m. IST).
 	It will pass within approximately 6.290,589 km of Earth, at a speed of 31319 km per hour.

What are scientists currently doing to detect and prevent possible future asteroid collisions?

Apart from current studies, a new space observatory, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is currently being built in Chile. This will help the discovery of thousands of more asteroids.
 	Missions like NASA's OSIRIS-REx and Japan's Hayabusa2 are currently exploring asteroids in our solar system. They will bring back samples to Earth in the future.
 	NASA is also building a new space telescope to protect Earth from asteroids.
 	Not only that, but NASA is also planning to launch a planetary defence system against asteroids in 2021. It is called DART, which stands for Double Asteroid Redirection Test.

You can also see a GIF below from NASA that shows the Near-Earth Objects (asteroids) around Earth.

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