Massive asteroid named ‘2008 KV2’ to streak past Earth TODAY: Details inside

A massive asteroid named as ‘2008 KV2’ is all set to streak past Earth on Thursday, reports Interesting Engineering. Well, there is no reason to be worried as there is no chance of a collision. As its name suggests 2008 KV2, the asteroid was first discovered in 2008. It is classified as a Near Earth Object or NEO.

The 2008 KV2, which is estimated to be about three times the length of a football field will fly past the distance of about 6.7 million kilometres from Earth today. NASA will observe the asteroid as it gets close. ‘Close’ in space terms is still far away, the moon is about 384,400 km away from us, and the asteroid will be more than 17 times that distance.

The asteroid is passing with 0.05 astronomical units (AU) of Earth, where one AU is equal to the average distance between the Earth and the sun. It will travel past earth at around 40,800 km/h.

Interestingly, the asteroid is not a one-time visitor. The 2008 KV2 is also orbiting the sun which means it will pass by Earth again in 2021 and twice in 2022.

Importantly, a huge asteroid named Apophis is set to zip past Earth on April 13, 2029. Apophis is a representative of about 2,000 currently known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs). It is so big and will be so close to earth that it will be possible to see with the naked eye.

Recently, an asteroid named as ‘2019 LC1’ brush past the Earth. The asteroid was as the Chicago Water Tower.

On December 18 last year, a large meteoroid was exploded over the Bering Sea, however, it went unnoticed due to the remote location. According to the NASA, the explosion of meteoroid unleashed around 173 kilotons of energy, more than 10 times that of the atomic bomb blast over Hiroshima in World War II. Also, it was the most powerful explosion in the atmosphere since the fireball that burst over the Russian town of Chelyabinsk in 2013. That was 440 kilotons and left 1,500 people injured, mostly from glass flying out of smashed windows.

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