NASA Warns 787-Foot Hazardous Asteroid To Skim Earth On Wednesday

NASA warned that Earth is about to experience a near-collision with a massive potentially hazardous asteroid. Based on the agency’s data, the asteroid is big enough and moving fast enough to cause a major impact event on Earth if it ends up hitting the planet.

The approaching asteroid has been identified by NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) as 2019 UN12. According to the agency, this asteroid is currently moving at a speed of over 64,000 miles per hour. It has an estimated diameter of 787 feet, making it significantly taller than the tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.

2019 UN12 is officially classified as an Apollo asteroid. This means that like other asteroids that belong to this group, 2019 UN12 has a very wide orbit that takes it around the Earth and the Sun. From time to time, the asteroid’s orbit intersects with that of Earth as it completes its cycle around the massive star.

Due to the space rock’s Earth-crossing orbit as well as its massive size, 2019 UN12 has been labeled as a potentially hazardous asteroid by CNEOS. This means that if the asteroid’s trajectory slightly changes, there’s a chance that it might end up on a collision course with Earth.

“Potentially Hazardous Asteroids are currently defined based on parameters that measure the asteroid’s potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth,” CNEOS explained in a statement.

“Specifically, all asteroids with a minimum orbit intersection distance of 0.05 [astronomical units] or less and an absolute magnitude of 22.0 or less are considered [potentially hazardous asteroids],” the agency added.

Given the asteroid’s massive size and current velocity, it would create a powerful impact on Earth if it ends up colliding with the planet. The energy that would be released from its explosion would be equivalent to hundreds of atomic bombs and would be powerful enough to destroy an entire city.

According to CNEOS, 2019 UN12 will approach Earth from a very close distance on Nov. 13 at 8:41 a.m. EST. During this time, the asteroid will only be about 0.00961 astronomical units or around 893,000 miles from the planet’s center.