NASA Telescopes Monitor Giant Asteroid on Course for Close Encounter with Earth

Since our childhood, we have been familiar with the story of an asteroid colliding with Earth approximately 65 million years ago, resulting in the extinction of dinosaurs. However, it is worth noting that this narrative is supported by a hypothesis known as the Alvarez hypothesis. According to this theory, the mass extinction event was triggered by a colossal asteroid impact on our planet. Furthermore, scientists have successfully traced the asteroid’s origin, determining that it likely originated between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This asteroid significantly altered Earth’s environment, potentially serving as the catalyst for the extinction of dinosaurs. Remarkably, researchers have even located the impact crater of this asteroid in Chicxulub, near Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Could a similar asteroid hit Earth today? While experts say an asteroid could hit Earth again, it’s a 250 million year cycle and will very likely go unnoticed by our future generations, and when it does, humans would be technologically advanced enough to handle the asteroid problem.

However, NASA is not taking any chances and keeps an eye on all asteroids that come close to Earth. And now, with its advanced tracking technology, it has recently discovered another asteroid that could potentially come close to Earth soon.

Is Asteroid 2018 BG5 dangerous?

NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) has named this space rock asteroid 2018 BG5. One of the main concerns about this asteroid is its sheer size. At nearly 170 feet wide, it’s almost the size of an airplane. While not a planet killer, an asteroid that large can still cause serious damage.

It is larger than the carbonaceous asteroid that crashed into Earth on June 30, 1908 in Yeniseysk Governorate, Russia, causing a 12-megaton explosion. This incident is now famously known as the Tunguska incident.

Asteroid 2018 BG5: More information

Asteroid 2018 BG5 will make its closest approach to Earth today, July 27, at a distance of about 4.1 million kilometers. Shockingly, it’s already hurtling toward Earth in its orbit, traveling at about 30,094 kilometers per hour, just shy of the speed of a hypersonic ballistic missile.

Asteroid 2018 BG5 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.