CALIFORNIA: It is time to thank your stars. A 1,000-feet wide ‘beast’ at a speed of 50,400 km per hour that could wipe out an entire city will come within a range of a million miles of earth on Sunday.
The asteroid will, however, safely pass earth from a distance of 1.25 million kms more than three times farther away than our moon.
Nicknamed the ‘Beast’, the mighty rock may have caused an explosion measured in megatons and wipe out a city if it were to hit earth, Nasa scientists said.
Designated “2014 HQ124”, the asteroid was discovered April 23, 2014, by Nasa’s NEOWISE mission, a space telescope adapted for scouting the skies for asteroids and comets.
“2014 HQ124” is designated a “potentially hazardous asteroid” (PHA) by Nasa.
There are currently 1,484 known PHAs but none pose a significant near-term risk of impacting earth.
“There is zero chance of an impact,” said Don Yeomans, manager of Nasa’s near-earth object program office at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
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