An asteroid as wide as the 2020 XU6 designated stadium will fly past Earth on Monday, February 22, 2021 as confirmed by the US-based space agency, NASA. According to data released by the space agency, the space rock would be about 700 feet long and is expected to lose Earth by 4,087,734 kilometers. NASA has described the asteroid as ‘Near Earth’ (NEO) and called it “dangerous”. 2020 XU6 travels at a speed of 8.4 kilometers per second or 30,240 kilometers per hour.
Asteroid 2020 XU6 to fly past Earth
NASA and other space agencies are expected to keep a close eye on deceptive rocks that may be approaching the earth or at least making a close call. In March 2020, NASA reported that a space-shaped SUV-sized rock had flown past our planet. This asteroid was first explained by a NASA-funded asteroid study. It has been called one of the Near-Earth Asteroids that has attracted a lot of attention because it had set the record for coming closer to Earth than the Near Earth Asteroid.
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What are asteroids?
Asteroids are small, rocky objects that orbit the sun just like planets but are much smaller in size. There are many asteroids in our solar system. Most of them live in the main asteroid belt. The NASA site reported that the asteroid belt is the region between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter. Further, NASA is also exploring ways to find asteroids that end up in the course of colliding with Earth.
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According to NASA, no known asteroid poses a major threat to Earth for the next 100 years. The U.S. space agency has announced that an asteroid called 410777 2009 FD is the most currently known threat, with a chance of 1 in 714 (less than 0.2%) hitting Earth in 2185. At the same time, in a similar event, a giant asteroid, larger than the size of the Eiffel Tower that passed Earth on February 1, as reported by NASA’s Asteroid Guard called Central for Near-Earth Object Studies. Called 2016 CL136 measures 2016 CL136, according to the report.