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As many as 5 asteroids are set to pass by Earth extremely closely today, NASA has warned. As these space rocks revolve around the Sun in their elliptical orbits, the asteroids also rotate, sometimes quite erratically, tumbling as they go. Colossal asteroids have been responsible for some of the biggest events in history. From the Chelyabinsk disaster that caused damages worth millions and many casualties to the asteroid which caused the extinction of dinosaurs nearly 65 million of years ago, asteroids have impacted lives whenever they have crashed on Earth.
NASA has warned that an asteroid is on its way today and although it is not expected to be a planet-killing asteroid, it can still cause major damage if it impacts. Here are the details, as per NASA.
Asteroid 2023 CP details
An asteroid named Asteroid 2023 CP is already on its way towards Earth travelling at a staggering speed of 12337 kilometers per hour and is expected to just miss the planet today, February 14. It will make its closest approach to Earth at a distance of 6.5 million kilometers, according to NASA.
NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office has warned that Asteroid 2023 CP is colossal in size with a width of 110 feet, meaning it’s nearly the size of a commercial aircraft.
NASA’s asteroid tracking tech
NASA tracks asteroids using a combination of ground-based and space-based telescopes. The NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), scans the night sky for moving objects and reports any potential asteroid detections, while some space-based observatories use infrared sensors to detect asteroids and their characteristics. Some of these include the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and the NEOWISE mission.
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