A large asteroid packing 50 megatons of force could crush on Earth in 2023 – and that's not all.

NASA news indicates that the Earth is in no danger.

A large asteroid could move towards us in the near future – flying into space on a risky trajectory likely to cause its collision with the Earth.

The news comes from Express, which quotes NASA sources revealing that the space rock could engage not in one but in 62 different potential impact paths with our planet, each waiting to attract the asteroid to Earth in the next 100 years.

Known as the 2018 LF16 asteroid, rock was last observed by our astronomers on June 16, says NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which calculated that its orbit and potential to become a threat to our planet. Calculations showed that the asteroid 2018 LF16 could collide with our planet on 62 different dates from here 2117.

The first of these disconcerting opportunities comes in just five years, August 8, 2023. The other potential repercussions in the near future are August 3, 2024 and August 1, 2025.

To make matters worse, it is estimated that the space rock is nearly 700 feet wide and is currently crossing the space at a speed exceeding 33,844 miles per hour. This made the 2018 LF16 asteroid twice the size of the space rock the size of the Statue of Liberty flying over our planet earlier today, as reported. Inquisitr.

"A space of as large a size is about twice as high as Big Ben's clock tower in London, twice as high as the Statue of Liberty in New York and four times higher that Nelson's column at Trafalgar Square ", states the Express.

NASA Asteroid WARNING: 300 meter wide space rock on 62 RISK trajectories with Earth from here 2023 https://t.co/XJXiw42UmH pic.twitter.com/qzNnM53Xtq

– FirstPressNG (@firstpressNg) November 25, 2018

However, that does not mean that the asteroid will hit Earth with absolute certainty. In fact, according to British media reports, NASA estimates that the asteroid has a 30 million chance of crashing on our planet. This translates to 99.9999967% chance of failure if the 2018 LF16 asteroid moved too close to home.

This particular spatial rock is considered a "zero" level threat on the Torino impact risk scale – meaning that its probability of collision with the Earth is almost non-existent.

This is the same designation that "also applies to small objects, such as meteors and bodies that burn in the atmosphere – as well as to infrequent meteorite falls that rarely cause damage, "says the Center for Studies of Near-Earth Objects at Jet Propulsion NASA Laboratory.

Although NASA's predictions show that the 2018 LF16 asteroid has virtually no chance of crashing into Earth, the space agency will continue to closely monitor this formidable space rock.

An asteroid of this size heading directly to the Earth would have a tremendous impact force that could rival the 50-megaton explosion produced by the bombing of Bomba in 1961. "

"This is more than 1,500 times that of the combined bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 10 times more powerful than all the ammunition used during World War II," the paper writes. BBC.

Fortunately, asteroids of these proportions do not pose a frequent threat to our planet. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), asteroids larger than 100 meters in diameter usually hit the Earth once every 1,000 years.

"The main challenge comes from the population of medium-sized objects, whose diameter varies from a few tens to several hundred meters," says ESA.

These smaller asteroids are found in greater numbers in our solar system and strike the Earth periodically, sometimes causing considerable damage. This was the case of the 60-foot asteroid that exploded above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013, injuring more than a thousand people and causing millions of dollars in damage.