When will a Chicxulub 2.0 approach our planet? That’s the question that we can’t run away from. Since it happened before when the dinosaurs got extinct, it might happen again one day. Some scientists even believe that it’s more a problem of ‘when’ rather than ‘if.’
Hoping that humanity will be prepared for such a moment, we have to worry about other dangers for now. However, one big asteroid will pass by Earth in just a few days, and we can consider it another warning about how truly fragile our planet is in space.
418135 (2008 AG33) will pass by Earth on Thursday
418135 (2008 AG33) is the name of the asteroid in question. We can all consider ourselves lucky that the space rock doesn’t have our planet’s name written on it. The asteroid measuring about 2,500 miles in width, will hurtle past Earth at an enormous speed of over 23,000mph on Thursday, according to Newsweek.com.
Tony Dunn, an amateur astronomer, gives us more insight into how big the 2008 AG33 asteroid is:
There’s been some hype about asteroid 2008 AG33 which is going to “Zip” past Earth on April 27 at only 8.4 Lunar Distances. The asteroid is 5x bigger than the London Eye, or twice as tall as the Empire State Building, or 217.4 giraffes.
There's been some hype about asteroid 2008 AG33 which is going to "Zip" past Earth on April 27 at only 8.4 Lunar Distances. The asteroid is 5x bigger than the London Eye, or twice as tall as the Empire State Building, or 217.4 giraffes. pic.twitter.com/LdWOAinlZ1
— Tony Dunn (@tony873004) April 22, 2022
NASA is constantly monitoring the sky for any possible threats when it comes to huge asteroids and comets. As far as the space agency publicly said, there’s no reason to worry about any dangerous space rock colliding with our planet in the near future.
On the other hand, we all have to admit that the Solar System is huge and pretty unpredictable. The asteroid belt is thought to measure about 140 million miles in length.
Hopefully, the world will be very advanced technologically to deal with any possible threat coming from space in the future.
