A giant asteroid the size of about 770 lions will fly past Earth on Thursday. It is one of the largest of all near-Earth asteroids, according to NASA’s Asteroid Tracker.
The asteroid in question has been named (415029) 2011 UL21, according to the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
According to the European Space Agency (ESA), (415029) 2011 UL21 is the single largest of all near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and while it will not hit Earth during its next flyby, a possible impact scenario it could be the worst global catastrophe in millions of years.
Asteroid, have you forgotten about me: How big is the asteroid that will pass the Earth?
Asteroids come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, and when it comes to KTA, we usually see them measured in terms of meters. But there is no underestimating how big this is. NASA JPL placed its diameter between a more conservative 1.7 kilometers and a much more colossal 3.9 kilometers. ESA estimated it slightly higher at 2.31 kilometers.
That’s a lot of big numbers. But let’s use a closer metric, something more Earth-friendly, something everyone knows: Cats. Except house cats are too small for that, so let’s use their much larger cousins: Lions instead.
According to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, male lions grow up to three feet tall. So, using ESA’s measurement, asteroid (415029) 2011 UL21 is about the size of 770 full-grown male lions from head to tail.
But if this asteroid is so big, it must be flying slowly. But no, it’s actually going through space at 25.88 kilometers per second. This means that it would take less than five minutes for this asteroid to fly the distance between New York and London.
It’s a big asteroid and we’re not lions about it: How dangerous would this asteroid be if it hit Earth?
Make no mistake: asteroid impacts can be devastating. Asteroid (415029) 2011 has been officially designated a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) due to its proximity to Earth and the large level of destruction it could cause.
To clarify, one of the criteria for defining a PHA is that it must have a diameter of at least 140 meters. Experts from the Davidson Institute of Science, part of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, say that an impact from such a large asteroid would be at least a thousand times more powerful than the first nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Something even bigger than that, like over 300 meters, would have the strength to destroy an entire continent.
An asteroid over a kilometer across would be a worldwide cataclysm. And asteroid (415029) 2011 UL21 is over twice that size.
To put this into greater perspective, the last major asteroid impact on Earth was the Tunguska event in 1908, when what is believed to have been an asteroid hit distant Russia. The result was one of the largest known explosions to occur in recorded history, heard as far away as the US and Indonesia and visible as far away as Scotland. It left a terrible level of destruction in its wake, even if only a few people were actually killed since it was so far-reaching.
While experts disagree on the size of this asteroid, estimates range from 50 meters across to about 200 meters. Compared to asteroid (415029) 2011 UL21, this is a drop in the bucket.
Fortunately, we have nothing to worry about. All predictions say that the asteroid will fly over six million kilometers from Earth. On the cosmic scale, it’s pretty close, but it’s over 17 times farther than the Moon.
Hakuna ma-asteroid: Are we not worried about a possible asteroid strike?
Asteroids have already hit Earth this year and will do so again in the future. But these were small blows that left no damage.
If a major impact occurs, scientists in the field of planetary defense will be hard at work trying to find ways to stop it. This includes increased surveillance to watch for incoming space rocks, as well as the means to try and neutralize the threat. The most promising method so far appeared on NASA’s Dual Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which proved it could deflect an asteroid by slamming a spacecraft into it, pushing its orbital path. sometimes so little.
But that doesn’t mean we would handle it well in practice. A recent simulated asteroid impact scenario by NASA and its partner organizations found major gaps in the global response system, even if we had 14 years to prepare.
In other words, while we’ve made a lot of progress in planetary protection, humanity still has a ways to go to protect Earth.