Astroid shall not hit the Earth, NASA: February 8:Sasi Kala- The issue of rock dashing threateningly with the Earth is always worry some, people get panicky since it is natural; but NASA says no panic,the object shall pass through peacefully without hitting the Earth, which Dr. Raj Baldev,Cosmo Theorist, from India has also confirmed.
As per NASA, it insists though an asteroid shall pass closer to the Earth, it has no cause of panic.
It says that 2012 DA14 shall miss the Earth by a good margin of about 17,100 miles or 27,540 km, hence no need of any panic.
“No Earth impact is possible,” said Donald Yeomans, an astronomer with the US Space agency.
It is likely to pass closer to the Earth than any asteroid for the last 15 years, closer even than the TV satellites that girdle the planet, it shall escape from the Earth.
As per Donald Yeomans, an astronomer with the US Space agency that the planet is bombarded with about 100 tons of space material every day.
“Basketball-sized objects come in daily,” he said. “Volkswagen-sized objects come in every couple of weeks. As you get to larger and larger sizes the number of objects out there is less and less, so the frequency of hits goes down.”
Yeomans added that asteroids as big as DA14, which is about 46 metres wide, are estimated to strike Earth about every 1,200 years.
“For objects of this size, this is the closest predicted encounter that we’re aware of,” he said.
The asteroid’s closest approach will be at 19.24 GMT (2.24pm EST) on 15 February, meaning that those gazing keenly at the dark skies of eastern Europe, Asia and Australia will stand the best chance of seeing it through telescopes or binoculars.
DA14, which was discovered last year by a group of amateur astronomers inSpain, will soar through the sky at about 8 miles (13 km) a second.
At that speed, an object of similar size on a collision course with Earth would strike with the force of about 2.4m tons of dynamite.
The last time that happened was in 1908 when an asteroid or comet exploded over Siberia, levelling 80m trees over 830 square miles (2,150 sq km).
“Although they wouldn’t cause a global catastrophe if they impact the Earth, they still do a lot of regional destruction,” said Lindley Johnson, who oversees the Near –Earth Object Observations Programme at NASA headquarters in Washington DC.
Nasa finds and tracks all near-Earth objects that are 0.62 miles (1 km) or larger in diameter. Their efforts are intended to give scientists and engineers as early a warning as possible so that steps can be taken to avert the kind of catastrophe that did for the dinosaurs.
About 66 million years ago, a six-mile -wide (10km) object smashed into the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico, leading to the demise of not just the giant lizards, but also most of the plant and animal life on Earth. (With output of Agencies and NASA).
