NASA says a humongous building-sized asteroid heading for Earth today

tech.hindustantimes.com:

A day after an aiplane-sized asteroid hurtled very close to our planet, there is a new terror on way. Yes, NASA says an asteroid today will get extremely close to Earth. In fact, quite a few asteroids are flying in space and heading towards Earth. NASA warned about this humongous asteroid which is as big as a 50-storey skyscraper or almost double the size of the Statue of Liberty. The asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth today. NASA confirmed that the asteroid will pass near Earth on July 17. This mammoth space rock known as 2022 KY4. Astronomers' eyes are on this asteroid to make sure there is no deviation in its path that may bring it even closer to Earth, or even crash into it.

These giant rocks in space, known as asteroids generally travel around the Sun, but can even change their paths due to the gravitational force of planets and sometimes even collide with them! So does this asteroid pose any risk to the Earth?

Thankfully, this asteroid will miss Earth, but not by a large margin! According to NASA, this asteroid will get as close to the Earth as about 3.8 million miles or 6.1 million kilometres. For better understanding, know that this is more than 16 times the average distance between Earth and the moon. Well, this is still a larger distance than asteroid 2022 NF, which passed near the Earth on July 7 within just 56,000 miles, around 23 percent of the average distance between Earth and the moon.

Well, how big is this asteroid? NASA says that asteroid 2022 KY4 is around 290 feet or 88 meters in diameter and is travelling at an estimated speed of 16,900 mph. For reference, the Statue of Liberty in London is 151 feet tall. That means, this massive asteroid is even much bigger than the Statue of Liberty!