Plane-sized asteroid to make closest approach on Aug 31, says NASA; scary space rock is a huge 130-ft wide

Earth may face a bit of a danger from this upcoming space rock hurtling along in space at terrifying speed! Fortunately, Earth has escaped two massive "potentially hazardous" asteroids after they made their closest approach towards Earth recently. A 130-foot-sized Asteroid 2022 QX4 and another 100-foot Asteroid passed our planet at a marginal distance. But the fear of these horrific space rocks is not over yet! The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has issued a warning that another massive airplane-sized space rock, asteroid 2022 QX1, will reach its closest approach to Earth on August 31. The worrying part is that NASA flagged it as a "potentially hazardous object".

The reason is its close proximity! According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the upcoming asteroid is 130-foot in size and is expected to come as close as 1.28 miles toward the Earth. NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) confirmed that the asteroid has a velocity of 21.12 km per second. NASA keeps a constant track of these monstrous space rocks which can bring destruction if they strike the Earth.

NASA dashboard displays the next five Earth approaches to within 4.6 million miles and having a size larger than about 150 meters that can approach the Earth to within this distance is termed a potentially hazardous object. Hence, Asteroid 2022 QX1 is flagged as a potentially hazardous object. NASA will keep an eye on this upcoming asteroid, in case it poses any threat to Earth in the next couple of days.

NASA and its Asteroid count

NASA says, "Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets, are rocky, airless remnants left over from the early formation of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.” And you will be amazed to know that NASA has found around 1,113,527 asteroids till date and it’s still counting!

Further, in order to defend Earth from the terror of these rocks coming every other day towards the Earth, NASA had deployed its DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft, which will crash right into the asteroid's core to deflect it from its original path.