California : It is time to thank your stars. A 1,000-feet wide “beast” at a speed of 50,400 km per hour – that could wipe out an entire city – will come within a range of a million miles of earth Sunday.
The asteroid will, however, safely pass earth from a distance of 1.25 million kms – more than three times farther away than our moon.
Nicknamed the “Beast,” the mighty rock may have caused an explosion measured in megatons and wipe out a city if it were to hit earth, NASA scientists said.
Designated “2014 HQ124”, the asteroid was discovered April 23, 2014, by NASA’s NEOWISE mission, a space telescope adapted for scouting the skies for asteroids and comets.
“2014 HQ124” is designated a “potentially hazardous asteroid” (PHA) by NASA.
There are currently 1,484 known PHAs but none pose a significant near-term risk of impacting earth.
“There is zero chance of an impact,” said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s near-earth object program office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.