Peanut-shaped asteroid nearly half a kilometer long could hit Earth

This peanut-shaped asteroid is considered to be on a collision course with Earth. Can humans avoid this disaster?

Astronomers have discovered a 400-meter-long asteroid that could hit Earth.

Illustration: Internet.

The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico with its giant radio telescope captured images of the asteroid, named 2015 BN509, as it was on its way past Earth.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) warns that this asteroid, about 200 meters wide and 400 meters long, poses a potential risk to Earth because it could crash into our planet one day.

Last week, the asteroid came within 70,500 km of Earth. At its closest, the asteroid was only 14 times closer to Earth than the distance between Earth and the Moon.

According to planetary scientist Dr Edgard Rivera-Valentín, the peanut-shaped meteorite was formed when two pieces of space objects stuck together after colliding. Dr Edgard also said that unlike natural disasters, collisions between Earth and meteorites are avoidable.

NASA now has an early warning system called Scout that can map out potential collision paths within 10 minutes of detecting an approaching asteroid.

The system will then alert three other telescopes so that the devices can observe and determine the most accurate trajectory of the meteorite.

According to News