NASA says the 190-foot asteroid 2024 MC is traveling at a rapid speed and headed toward Earth.
NASA has said that this asteroid will reach very close to Earth today, moving towards Earth at a speed of 32076 miles per hour. (Pixabay)
The US space agency NASA has revealed that a giant asteroid is heading towards Earth and it is travelling at a shocking speed. This space rock is named Asteroid 2024 MC and it is as big as an airplane. Not only this, this giant asteroid is going to pass very close to Earth. NASA has revealed that it will pass as close as 1,550,000 miles to Earth. Given that this space rock is nothing but a missile moving around the solar system, there is a high possibility of its destruction if it collides with any planet. Asteroid 2024 MC will pass closest to Earth today, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. NASA is tracking this asteroid as well as many other asteroids approaching Earth with its many space-based and Earth-based instruments.
According to NASA's Small-Body Database, this asteroid belongs to the Aten group of asteroids and is classified as a near-Earth asteroid (NEO). Although it will pass safely this time, it will come back again in the year 2026 in the month of December 25, 2026! Yes, it will be a Christmas asteroid. Notably, Aten asteroids are those that pass the Earth in a period of less than a year.
A scary encounter and accident
According to NASA, a very scary event occurred on March 23 in the year 1989. A 0.4 kilometer wide asteroid came within a mere 640,000 kilometers of Earth. Not only that, the shocked researchers did the math around the asteroid and found that it weighed 50 million tons, was traveling at a speed of 74,000 kilometers per hour and the asteroid and our planet passed through the same point in space within a mere 6 hours of each other!
Not only this, on June 30 in the year 1908, an asteroid with a diameter of 330 feet hit the Earth! In fact, it turned into a fireball upon hitting the Earth's atmosphere. This happened in the remote region of Tunguska in Siberia and destroyed all the trees spread across more than 500,000 acres of forest land.