MASSIVE 150-foot Asteroid speeding at 67656 kmph towards Earth, says NASA

NASA has alerted about a 150-foot-wide asteroid heading towards Earth soon. Is it a potential threat? NASA explains.

NASA has warned about a massive 150-foot wide asteroid approaching Earth on April 6. (NASA)

Asteroids can pose a significant danger to Earth, at least that's what the past incidents have proved so far! While most asteroids that enter Earth's atmosphere burn up and disintegrate before they can reach the surface, some larger asteroids can cause significant damage upon impact. The responsibility of monitoring near-Earth objects like asteroids and comets that have the potential to survive entry through Earth's atmosphere and endanger the planet falls on space agencies like NASA. Through the JPL watchboard, NASA provides advance notice of any potentially hazardous asteroids that are set to approach Earth.

One of these scary asteroids is coming on April 6, which is travelling at a terrifying speed of 67656 km per hour. This asteroid is named 2023 FZ3 which measures a massive 150 feet in diameter and is said to come as close as 2.61 million miles to Earth, NASA's Asteroid Watch Dashboard data showed. So, is it dangerous for Earth? Here's what NASA said.

The potential danger of upcoming Asteroid

While most near-Earth objects have orbits that don't bring them dangerously close to Earth, a subset of them, known as potentially hazardous asteroids, demand extra scrutiny. Such asteroids are at least 460 feet (140 meters) in size and have orbits that bring them as close as 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) to Earth's orbit around the Sun. To gauge any potential impact risk, CNEOS persistently tracks all identified near-Earth objects.

Hence, the giant 150-foot-wide asteroid 2023 FZ3 is not a potentially hazardous threat for Earth.

Tech eyes behind the danger of asteroids

Although asteroid-tracking information is available from various sources, the majority of it is gathered by well-funded observatories backed by NASA. Examples include the Pan-STARRS, Catalina Sky Survey, and NASA's NEOWISE mission, with the forthcoming NEO Surveyor observatory set to join the list. In addition, NASA's NEO Observations Program heavily relies on planetary radar initiatives, such as the Goldstone Solar System Radar Group at JPL.

The Sentry impact-monitoring system, located at the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, undertakes continual, extensive evaluations of potentially dangerous asteroids' orbits for the long term. Presently, there are no identifiable high-impact risks for the coming century or beyond, NASA confirmed.