Gigantic Silicate Asteroid Heading Toward Earth at High Speed

World Asteroid Day is celebrated every year on June 30 to mark the anniversary of the Tunguska event, the most significant asteroid impact ever recorded. On this day in 1908, a carbonaceous asteroid collided in Yeniseysk Governorate, Russia, causing extensive damage to approximately 2150 square kilometers of forest and leaving a visible impact on the ground. The resulting explosion was measured at nearly 12 megatons and was described by David Morrison, a planetary science researcher at the NASA Ames Research Center, as the “most significant cosmic event ever observed by humans.”

In a separate event, NASA has now released details of the asteroid’s incoming approach this month, which is absolutely huge!

Asteroid 1988 EG: Details

The asteroid, named Asteroid 1988 EG by the Minor Planet Center (MPC), was discovered on March 12, 1988 by American astronomer Jeff T. Alu at the US Palomar Observatory in California. NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Research has classified it as a near-Earth object and a potentially hazardous asteroid due to its close approach and enormous size.

The asteroid will make its closest approach to the earth on August 23 and pass by at a distance of about 6 million kilometers on the same day. It is already hurtling toward Earth, traveling at a speed of about 51309 kilometers per hour, which is much faster than a hypersonic ballistic missile!

According to NASA, Asteroid 1988 EG is an S-type asteroid, a less common class of asteroids composed primarily of silicate minerals. This space rock takes nearly 523 days to orbit the Sun and during this time its maximum distance from the Sun is 285 million kilometers, while its minimum distance is 95 million kilometers.

Is it dangerous?

NASA has revealed that this asteroid is almost the size of a skyscraper, measuring between 1,410 and 3,149 feet across. That means it’s even bigger than the Empire State Building in New York!

It has been added to NASA’s close approach list and has also been declared a potentially hazardous asteroid due to its close approach distance and enormous size.

Asteroid 1988 EG belongs to Apollo’s group of Near-Earth Asteroids, which are Earth-crossing space rocks with semimajor axes greater than the Earth’s axis. These asteroids are named after the huge 1862 Apollo asteroid discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s.