What if asteroids ever hit Earth? Know mind-blowing answer from NASA

Do you remember those scenes from Sci-fi films, when space objects fall from the sky on Earth? What if that happens in real life! What if asteroids collide with our Earth? Terrifying feeling, right! However, let us not put our brains into the imagination mode, because Dr. Kelly Fast, the planetary defense expert and a manager of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office has an answer based on logic that should put your mind at ease to an extent. She looks at the reality and charts the trends to come up with a rational answer that puts things in perspective regarding asteroids.

“Yes, asteroids have hit Earth over the course of its history, and it will happen again,” Dr. Fast said. She further clarified that meteoroids collide with Earth all the time. But they are very small. You must have seen shooting stars, those are meteors, which are the disintegrated particles of space materials.

“But impacts of asteroids that affect the surface are much rarer and happen on time scales of hundreds to thousands to millions of years,” Dr. Fast said about the impact of asteroids colliding with the Earth's surface. According to the space agency NASA, small size asteroids can be detected passing towards Earth several times a month. Meteoroids, which are very small pieces of an asteroid and comets are usually less than 3 feet in size and they can hit and explode in the atmosphere of the Earth. In fact, it happens almost every day.

Dr. Fast further explained that finding the asteroids which may pose a threat to Earth as early as possible is critical. If this early warning is received steps can be taken to limit the damage. Mitigation against a future impact can also be thought of and acted upon. Well, the good news is that larger asteroids are considerably more easier to locate than smaller ones, and our solar system has less of these larger asteroids.

Next upcoming Asteroid that are approaching

1. 3361 Orpheus (1982 HR), the 1600 ft size with the closets earth approach of 3,580,000 KM

2. 2021 VW5 named asteroid of the approximate size of 53 Feet expected with the closest earth approach 3,720,000 km

3. The 2021 VQ26 named airplane-sized asteroid with the approximate size of 170 feet is expected to come near Earth with 1,100,000 on November 22.

However, do not fear, these asteroids don't pose any threat or hazard to humans on Earth.