Asteroid As Powerful As 50 Megaton Nuke May Slam Into Earth in 2023, Says NASA
According
to the newspaper Express, a relatively large asteroid that might someday be
headed directly for Planet Earth would release a massive impact force 1,500
times that of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs combined. The British
daily cites NASA sources as
claiming that the asteroid, almost 700 feet across, might have an astounding 62
diverse potential impact routes with Earth with each of them possibly able to
set the asteroid on a collision course with us over the next 100 years.
According
to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the asteroid 2018 LF16 was last
pinpointed on 16 June with calculations revealing that the space rock could
smash into Earth sometime before 2117. Its first such frightening encounter
will come just five years from now, on 8 August, 2023 with other close impact
dates being 3 August, 2024 and 1 August, 2025.
What’s
even worse is that the asteroid is presently racing through space at a speed of
over 33,844 miles an hour.
“A space rock this big is about twice as tall as Big Ben’s clock
tower in London, twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in New York, and is
four times as tall as Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square,”
This
does not certainly mean, however, that asteroid 2018 LF16 is 100 percent certain
to crash into Earth. NASA scientists estimate that the asteroid has a one in 30
million chance of having an impact with planet and has a 99.9999967 percent
chance of missing us in the occasion it does stroll too close to home.
If
the asteroid this big hits Earth than it would create impact force equal to
that of the 57-megaton Tsar Bomb the Soviet Union exploded in 1961.
The
BBC wrote:
“That
is more than 1,500 times that of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined, and
10 times more powerful than all the munitions expended during World War II.”
Fortunately
for mankind, asteroids hardly stroll close to Earth, with the European Space
Agency saying that asteroids greater than 330 feet in diameter frequently cross
paths with Earth only once every 1,000 years.
2 comments
In consideration of how many asteroids are out there and how many have passed close to the Earth the odds of not getting hit have been getting worse for us.
Most of the large asteroids have enough mass to be influenced off coarse from the other large planets in our solar system. Planets like the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus have extremely strong gravity. The gravitational forces from these bodies have an affect on large objects passing through our solar system.
if this was to happen I surjest you should tak e up yogu and learn how to kiss your asp good by