If you spent your weekend out enjoying the last of the summer sun, you may not have been aware of an enormousasteroidwhizzing past our planet.
The monster asteroid is nearly as big as the world’s tallest building – the Burj Khalifa in Dubai – and zipped past Earth in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Asteroid 2000 QW7, also known as 467317, was traveling at around 14, 400 miles / hour during the passing – roughly 19 times the speed of sound!
Thankfully, it passed Earth at a distance of 3.3 million miles, although this is classified as ‘close’ byNASA.
Despite this distance, astronomers were able to snap incredibly detailed images of the asteroid during the passing.
Astronomy site Slooh live- streamed the event, using NASA’s Solar System Telescope in the Canary Islands.
Paul Cox, an astronomer with Slooh, said: “It might not look that impressive to you if you’re not into astronomy, but that white dot just above center is the size of New York’s One World Trade Center and twice the size of London’s Shard.
“It is traveling at a velocity of 14, 361 miles / hour. That’s 6. 24 kilometers per second. This thing is massive and going very fast, which means it has a huge amount of energy.
“Right at this moment, it is 3.5 million miles away, which might sound like a lot, but those numbers are tiny.
“It is a stone’s throw in astronomical terms. And this is a pretty big stone to throw! ”
Thankfully, the asteroid avoid a collision with our planet, which could have been catastrophic.
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Mr Cox added: “If an object this size were to impact Earth, it would leave more than a scratch – it could wipe out a city and cause regional devastation. Yet, just like the dinosaurs, we’re hopelessly ill-prepared for such an event. ”
This wasn’t the first time that 2000 QW7 has passed our planet – the asteroid previously zoomed past Earth on 1 September 2000.
Its next approach will be on October 19, 2038, according to NASA.
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