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The history of past incidents has shown that asteroids can pose a substantial threat to Earth. Not just dinosaurs, many other extinction events have been ascribed to asteroids, comets and other cosmic objects. However, the majority of asteroids that enter the planet’s atmosphere burn up and disintegrate before reaching it. Space agencies such as NASA take the responsibility of monitoring these dangerous asteroids, that may endanger the planet. NASA provides advanced warning of potentially hazardous asteroids approaching Earth through the JPL watchboard.
Today, NASA has alerted about a scary asteroid that is set to make a perilously close approach towards our planet. NASA’s CNEOS data has also revealed that it is travelling at a terrifying speed of 33007 km per hour. This asteroid is named 2023 HT6 which measures 67-foot in diameter, NASA’s Asteroid Watch Dashboard data showed. Should you worry about this space rock? Know what NASA said about asteroid 2023 HT6.
Danger of upcoming Asteroid 2023 HT6
Although the majority of near-Earth objects have orbits that pose no threat to Earth, a specific category of asteroids, called potentially hazardous asteroids, require additional attention. NASA flags such asteroids which have at least 460 feet (140 meters) in size and their orbits bring them as close as 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) to Earth’s orbit. In order to assess the risk of impact, CNEOS continuously monitors all known near-Earth objects.
Hence, this upcoming 67-foot-wide asteroid 2023 HT6’s close distance can be a worrying part for scientists but its size keeps it out of the category of a potentially hazardous asteroid threat for Earth.
Tech tracking asteroid danger
Although asteroid-tracking information is available from various sources, the majority of it is gathered by well-funded observatories backed by NASA. Examples include the Pan-STARRS, Catalina Sky Survey, and NASA’s NEOWISE mission, with the forthcoming NEO Surveyor observatory set to join the list. In addition, NASA’s NEO Observations Program heavily relies on planetary radar initiatives, such as the Goldstone Solar System Radar Group at JPL.
The Sentry impact-monitoring system, located at the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, undertakes continual, extensive evaluations of potentially dangerous asteroids’ orbits for the long term.
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