‘Hazardous’ Asteroid 2006 QQ23 Might Hit Earth Next Month!
Another day, another Asteroid! It was just yesterday when the news of Asteroid 2006 QV89 not hitting our Earth in september came to light. And now NASA has already detected another massive hazardous asteroid, named 2006 QQ23, that has high chances of hitting our Earth next month.
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According to CNEOS, 2006 QQ23, is expected to move past Earth on August 10th at 7:23 AM ST at a distance of about 0.04977 au which is a rather shorter distance in astronomical terms. It has also been tagged as “hazardous” meaning it has a pretty good chance of hitting our planet if its orbit manages to intersect with our Earth’s orbit. The estimated diameter for the asteroid has been estimated to around 250 m – 570 m i.e. close to 1870 feet. This makes it larger in size than many popular tall skyscrapers in our world today. Also, the asteroid is much bigger in size as compared to the Chelyabinsk meteor that was approximately 66ft in size and entered Earth’s atmosphere over Russia back in 2013. The blast from Chelyabinsk meteor was considered stronger than the nuclear explosion and made the space agencies more aware of closely monitoring the space bodies lingering near Earth.
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But, does this mean we have to worry? If we go by the history of asteroids that made headlines for hitting our Earth in the past few months, we might not have to worry so much, as these asteroids often tend to either burn off in the air or become a no-show (we’re looking at you 2006 QV89) even if they manage to enter our Earth’s atmosphere. However, we cannot deny the possibility that the Asteroid 2006 QQ23 might manage to hit our Earth and cause grave damage. In case you’re not already aware of the damage that the asteroids can cause to our Earth, some of them include satellite destruction, tsunamis, earthquakes, and so on.
NASA hasn’t released any more information surrounding the asteroid, but we’ll keep you posted if we get any updates regarding 2006 QQ23.
This article was written by Natasha Mathur and originally published on Mashable India