Washington DC. The American space agency NASA has announced a major alert on Tuesday. NASA has said that there is a strong possibility that a ‘lost asteroid’ will collide with Earth in 2024. Currently, this dangerous asteroid named 2007 FT3 is in space and could hit Earth by next year. This is not the first time that NASA has reported an asteroid heading towards Earth. It won’t be the last either.
NASA reports that there are currently more than 32,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and more than 120 known short-period near-Earth comets (NECs). Each of these space elements has the potential to wreak havoc on Earth in one form or another, if not successfully contained. Most of these known asteroids are tracked by NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). A branch of the space agency has estimated that an asteroid will likely collide with the planet by October 2024.
2007 FT3: ‘Lost Asteroid’ Threatens to Head for Earth
In 2007, scientists spotted an asteroid in space, which they named 2007 FT3. The object turned out to be an asteroid, but it soon lost its flight path and scientists could not find it. The asteroid had a short observation arc of only 1.2 days, after which scientists could not recover it by targeted observations. The most alarming thing is that it has not been seen since 2007.
It is feared that 2007 FT3 will collide with Earth next year.
NASA scientists speculate that the asteroid may now have found its way back to Earth. He adds that there is every possibility that 2007 FT3 will hit Earth next year. But how high is the probability? To this question, NASA suggests that the probability of 2007 FT3 colliding with Earth in October 2024 is 0.0000087 percent, or 1 in 11.5 million. It has another chance of hitting Earth in March 2024, with a probability estimated at 0.0000096 percent, or 1 in 10 million. Regarding both of these fears, it has been said that in both cases, the asteroid has the potential to release energy equivalent to the explosion of 2.6 billion tons of TNT.
How dangerous can this be?
According to NASA estimates, in both cases, the energy released by an asteroid-Earth collision could cause significant regional devastation. However, the destruction would be too weak to cause any global damage. The space agency says it will likely hit Earth on October 5, 2024. There are other asteroids approaching Earth that could potentially cause similar destruction. One object, known as 29075 (1950 DA), is the second most sensitive rock on NASA’s list. It had eluded scientists since its discovery in the 1950s, but now it has been discovered. It has a 0.0029 percent or 1 in 34,500 chance of hitting Earth on March 16, 2880, one way into the future.
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Tags: asteroid, the earth, NASA, A NASA study, Washington
First published: November 21, 2023, 19:33 IST