Asteroid Which Is Up To 160m Wide And 111m High Zoom Across Earth

Asteroid Which Is Up To 160m Wide And 111m High Zoom Across Earth

Nasa said the object is up to 160 metres wide, meaning it could be bigger than St. Paul’s Cathedral, which stands 111 metres high and was the tallest building in London until 1967.

The gigantic space rock is called 2016 NF23 and was travelling at 20,000 miles per hour – which is about 15 times as fast as Concorde – when it reached the closest point of its approach just before 4am.

If the rock were ever to Earth, it would destroy an entire city and kill millions. it’s not on a collision course with our planet so is unlikely to do us any damage at any point in the future.

Humanity doesn’t need to fear gigantic asteroids big enough to wipe us off the face of the Earth, because they are easy to track due to their enormous size.

But we should be very afraid of smaller ‘stealth asteroids’ which are big enough to wipe out a city and extremely difficult to detect.

Detlef Koschny, head of the ESA near-Earth objects team, said that even small objects could do major damage.

‘If a 100-metre asteroid hit Earth, it would cause significant damage in an area the size of Germany, and even affect the surrounding region. But asteroids of this size don’t strike Earth very often. Maybe every 10,000 years on average, he said.