ALERT! Stadium-sized potentially hazardous asteroid to come dangerously close to the Earth today!

An Apollo group asteroid, which has been declared as a Potentially Hazardous Object by NASA, is expected to make its closest approach to Earth today, July 12. Know if it will impact.

Asteroid 2018 UY belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids. (Pixabay)

More and more asteroids have been flying past Earth albeit at close but safe distances. Due to the potential danger of impact, it is important for space agencies such as NASA and ESA to keep an eye on these space rocks. NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office monitors the skies with telescopes and keeps track of upcoming near-Earth object (NEO) flybys. With the help of advanced satellites and ground-based telescopes such as the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), 1,298,692 asteroids have been discovered to date, of which more than 27,000 are near-Earth asteroids with orbits bringing them closer than 7.5 million kilometers of Earth.

One of these rocks is Asteroid 2018 UY which is expected to make its closest approach to Earth today.

Asteroid 2018 UY details

The asteroid, designated as Asteroid 2018 UY by NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), will make its closest approach to Earth today, July 12, at a distance of 2.8 million kilometers. It is dashing towards Earth at a breakneck speed of 58979 kilometers per hour.

What's concerning about this asteroid is that it is mammoth in size. With a width of nearly 760 feet, it is almost as big as a stadium! It has been added to NASA's Close Approaches list and has also been declared as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid due to its close distance of approach as well as its enormous size.

It belongs to the Apollo group of Near-Earth Asteroids, which are Earth-crossing space rocks with semi-major axes larger than Earth's. These asteroids are named after the humongous 1862 Apollo asteroid, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s.

Asteroids hiding behind the Sun

Astronomers have spotted three near-Earth asteroids (NEA) hiding in the glare of the Sun. One of them is the largest object that is potentially hazardous to Earth to be discovered in the last eight years. A team using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope in Chile, a Program of NSF's NOIRLab, discovered these asteroids.

This is a notoriously challenging region for observations because asteroid hunters have to contend with the glare of the Sun. By taking advantage of the brief yet favourable observing conditions during twilight, however, the astronomers found this elusive trio.