A Giant Asteroid Will Sweep Past Earth On 29th April. Do You Need To Worry?

The Arecibo Observatory captured this radar image of the big asteroid 1998 OR2 on April 18, 2020. 1998 OR2 will fly by Earth at a distance of 3.9 million miles (6.3 million kilometers) on April 29. (Image: © Arecibo Observatory/NASA/NSF)

A giant asteroid will skim past Earth on 29th April 2020.

Asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 first observed in 1998 is estimated to be a bit over a mile (2 km) wide and twice that long. On Saturday (April 18), the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico captured a radar image of the asteroid 1998 OR2 which is travelling through space at 19,461 miles per hour (31,320 km/h).

This asteroid will zoom past within 3.9 million miles (6.3 million km) from Earth or about 16 times the distance between Earth-Moon. So, there is nothing to worry about the flyby, scientist suggest.

The closest approach of the asteroid 1998 OR2 will occur on Wednesday, April 29, at 5:56 a.m. ET (09:56 UTC), according to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. 

The Arecibo Observatory is a National Science Foundation managed by University of Central Florida and supported by NASA's Center of Near-Earth Object Studies program since the 90's. However, it is not the only observatory keeping track of the asteroid. For instance, Italian astrophysicist Gianluca Masi, who runs a Virtual Telescope Project, is one of the many other keeping a eye on the asteroid.

The White line show 1998 OR2's orbit

The asteroid is categorized as a potentially hazardous object since it is larger than 500 feet and comes within 5 million miles of our planet's orbit. If the asteroid collides with Earth, it is likely going to cause global effects. Asteroid 1998 OR2 is the largest asteroid to flyby Earth this year (as far as we know).

The orbit of the asteroid is known well for the next 200 years. Its closest approach to Earth in the 21st century and the next flyby will occur in the year 2079. This time it is expected to fly 3.5 times closer to Earth than it will this year, about a million miles of Earth. Still this distance is 4 times the distance between Earth and Moon.

However, it is interesting to note that asteroid 1998 OR2 is the largest known Near Earth Object that will fly pass less than 5 times the Earth-Moon distance over the next 200 years!

For the time being, there is nothing to worry about the close approach. We have already found majority of the potentially hazardous near-Earth object and none of them pose a threat to Earth in the foreseeable future.