Asteroids, comets are a threat, warns UN, humanity must deal with NEO danger
Photo Credit: Pixabay UN space agency says that it is vigilant about threat posed by asteroids and comets to Earth and humanity.
Photo Credit: Pixabay Near-Earth Objects, or NEO, are those asteroids that come relatively close to the Sun, to about 50 million kilometres from Earth's orbit.
Photo Credit: Unsplash Some of them are extremely ‘potentially hazardous objects’ as they will come extremely close to the Earth during their travels.
Photo Credit: Pixabay Potentially Hazardous Objects are those that come very close to Earth - a distance of less than 7.5 million kilometres. In space terms, this is negligible.
Photo Credit: Pixabay While large asteroids do pose a big danger, even smaller objects can cause significant, although localized, damage on Earth.
Photo Credit: Pixabay There are several events in history which have recorded the damage caused by asteroids falling from the sky.
Photo Credit: Pixabay Two asteroids stand out that have hit Erath recently. One is the Tungushka event on 30 June 1908 over Siberia and then there is the event in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk when a fiery ball exploded over the city on 15 February 2013.
Photo Credit: Pixabay According to the US Space Administration (NASA), the explosion released the energy equivalent of around 440,000 tons of TNT.
Photo Credit: NASA That generated a shock wave that blew out windows and even damaged buildings.
Photo Credit: Pixabay The 15 February 2013 event in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk records Over 1,600 people were injured in the blast, mostly due to shattered glass according to NASA.
Photo Credit: Pixabay Notably, US space agency NASA, its European counterpart ESA and others keep a keen eye on potentially hazardous objects to warn about the possible threats.
Click here