Asteroid alert! Aircraft-sized asteroid charging towards at Earth at a fiery 53171 kmph

NASA has warned that a giant asteroid is heading dangerously towards Earth today! Know its speed, trajectory and more, as per NASA.

This asteroid is nearly the size of an aircraft! Know what NASA says about this oncoming space rock. (Pixabay)

To study asteroids that are not in the asteroid belt, NASA has the Lucy Space Mission. NASA launched its Lucy spacecraft on Oct. 16, 2021 from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. This is NASA's first space mission to study the Trojans, a group of asteroids which orbit the Sun in two groups, according to NASA. It is built to seek out trojan asteroids millions of kilometers from Earth. But before that, NASA has also issued an alert about an asteroid that is hurtling speedily towards the planet and could make a close approach today!

Asteroid 2022 YB1 info

NASA has warned that an asteroid named Asteroid 2022 YB1 is charging towards Earth and is expected to pass by the planet closely today, December 26. The asteroid is already on its way towards us travelling at a staggering speed of 53171 kilometers per hour. The asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth today at a distance of just 2.1 million kilometers or 0.01451 astronomical units.

An astronomical unit (AU, or au) is basically a unit of length equal to the average, or mean, distance between Earth and the Sun, that is, 149,597,870.7 kilometers.

NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office is responsible for monitoring the skies and keeping a watch on various Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). If any celestial object is at risk of Earth impact and comes within 8 million kilometers of the planet, the organisation red flags the NEO and issues an alert.

The alert has been issued against Asteroid 2022 YB1 which has a width between 62 feet and 141 feet, making it nearly the size of an aircraft!

How does NASA track these asteroids?

NASA keeps a watch on these asteroids by studying data collected by various telescopes and observatories such as the Pan-STARRS, the Catalina Sky Survey and the NEOWISE telescope. NASA also has a NEO Surveyor mission planned for launch in 2026 to gain even greater in-depth data using a new orbiter.

NASA also has a new impact monitoring system in place which uses an algorithm called Sentry-II to calculate the impact risk of Near-Earth Objects. NASA can track the orbital path of the asteroid using this infrared data and can even predict its orbit years into the future.