There are hundreds of stories about asteroids threatening to hit our planet and end life on Earth. Are you afraid of an apocalypse?
Remember the date: May 6, 2022. It’s the day when the Earth could be hit by a huge asteroid. The giant space rock is called JF1 and it could hit our planet.
The asteroid was discovered by NASA in 2009 and has been closely watched over the last 10 years.
“Sentry is a highly automated collision monitoring system that continually scans the most current asteroid catalogue for possibilities of future impact with Earth over the next 100 years,” NASA explains.
The asteroid is in the Sun’s orbit and it’s a ‘near-Earth object’ which means it’s a threat to the Earth.
“Some asteroids and comets follow orbital paths that take them much closer to the Sun and therefore Earth than usual. If a comet’s or asteroid’s approach brings it to within 1.3 astronomical units of the Sun, we call it a near-Earth object,” a NASA spokesperson explains.
The asteroid equates to around 93 million miles and it’s not exactly close, but the worrying part is that is 130 meters in diameter.
Just to make it clear, the asteroid could hit the Earth with the force of 230 kilotonnes of TNT. The Atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima in 1945 had the force of 15 kilotonnes of TNT. Scientists explain that if JF1 were to hit a populated area, it could destroy an entire city instantly, leading to millions of deaths. Even if the asteroid hit in the Pacific Ocean, it can still cause devastating tsunamis that can impact life on the planet.
“Larger NEOs greater than 140 meters would have the potential to inflict severe damage to entire regions or continents. Such objects would strike Earth with a minimum energy of over 60 megatons of TNT, which is more than the most powerful nuclear device ever tested. Fortunately, these are far less common and are easier to detect and track than smaller NEOs,” says the 2018 White House report.
There’s no need to worry too much because the space agency thinks that there is a 0.026% chance of JF1 actually hitting the Earth.