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NASA revealed that a giant asteroid, discovered just a week ago, was approaching Earth on Saturday afternoon, January 12, 2019.
NASA scientists have called the asteroid "2019 AX2", the first time by radar, on January 3 this year.
NASA astronomers believe that the rogue rock space is heading towards Earth at the closest point to our planet at the end of this week.
On Saturday, January 12th, the asteroid will create the so-called "closest approach to Earth" and fly over our planet.
The JAP (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) scientists, based in California, are waiting for the asteroid "AX2" to appear at 13:08 GMT.
The asteroid is expected to reach 6.7 million kilometers from Earth as it approaches. Scientists at the jet propulsion laboratory estimate that the size of the asteroid "AX2" is between 32 and 71 meters.
The asteroid is three and a half times the length of the bowling alley and 8.4 times longer than the London double-decker bus, which is also higher than the sloping tower of Pisa.
Smaller asteroids are known to cause unimaginable damage when they collide with a planet. When a 20-meter-long space rock penetrated very quickly into the Earth's atmosphere, more than 1,500 people were injured in the Chelyabinsk region.
Fortunately, the asteroid "AX2" will not be close enough to hit our planet with devastating power.
AX2 will be in objects called Near Earth Objects (NEO), where it will approach about 0.04508 astronomical unit of Earth.
Astronomers define the astronomical unit (au) as being the distance between the Sun and the Earth, about 149.6 million kilometers.
NASA expects that the asteroid "AX2" will exceed this distance of about 6.74 million kilometers, which corresponds to 17.55 times the distance from Earth to the Moon.
According to NASA, all asteroids and comets located 50 million kilometers from Earth's orbit around the sun are NEOs.
After passing the asteroid "AX2" of the Earth, NASA expects the space object to visit us at least three times in the morning of January 5, 2033, followed by August 26, 2085 then of September 2, 2134.
Source: Russia today
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