Hazardous 140-foot wide asteroid is on the way to Earth; Know what NASA said
The terror of asteroids buzzing Earth is continuing! Today, a massive 180-foot asteroid named 2022 QB22, closely passed the Earth at a hazardously close distance of just 3.39 million miles. Now, NASA has confirmed a new “potentially hazardous” asteroid making its closest approach to Earth on September 11. According to NASA's Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), the near-Earth object named Asteroid 2022 QF2 is said to be around 140-foot wide which is as big as a plane. It will fly close by Earth from a distance of about 4.54 million miles. Does this asteroid pose any threat to Earth?
To determine the potential threat from an asteroid or near-Earth objects, NASA's Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies keeps track of asteroids that have the potential to strike Earth. Whenever an asteroid with a diameter of more than 492-foot or 150 meters approaches Earth, NASA classifies it as a potentially hazardous asteroid and monitors it closely. That means, the size of the Asteroid 2022 QF2 may not pose a threat to Earth, but its close approach is what makes it a hazardous asteroid.
So, NASA says that an asteroid that approaches Earth within 4.6 million miles or 7.5 million kilometres, is termed a potentially hazardous object. Hence, Asteroid 2022 QF2 has been termed potentially hazardous.
Meanwhile, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission is all set to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid on September 26, 2022 to test planetary defence techniques. Recently, the spacecraft got its first look at Didymos, the double-asteroid system that includes its target. NASA confirms that "While the asteroid poses no threat to Earth, this is the world's first test of the kinetic impact technique, using a spacecraft to deflect an
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