‘Pyramid-sized asteroid flyby won’t impact earth’

Scientists are discovering something new every day and as per the latest discovery, we have more than 500 objects whose orbits intersect with the Earth’s orbit.”

dubai — Scientists are tracking near-Earth asteroids more closely than ever as concerns over a “catastrophic event leading to mass extinction” grows, a top UAE astronomer has said. A Giza pyramid-sized asteroid will fly by Earth on August 29.

The 120m-wide Asteroid NF23 made headlines worldwide as it will fly 21 million km away from Earth, at a speed of 32,400kmph. In 2013, a 20m-wide asteroid fell over a Russian city, causing injuries to more than 1,000 people. The injuries were caused by debris and glass from shattered windows.

However, the CEO of the Dubai Astronomy Group, Hasan Hariri, has assured that the asteroid will be too far off from Earth to cause any kind of impact to the home planet. “Scientists believe that something will hit earth some time. There has been a pattern that some catastrophic has happened to Earth every 60 million years. But, because, we are past due the next 60 million years, scientists are very interested in cosmic events. This is why the nearearth asteroids are alarming them and they are searching for candidates that can hit earth. “This is

Hasan Hariri, CEO of Dubai Astronomy Group

why they have started new programmes to search for these objects,” Hariri said.

He said the asteroid that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk had put experts on high alert as well. The Chelyabinsk meteor explosion involved the 20m-wide asteroid that started tearing apart while it was falling down towards Russia. It was reported by international media that when the rock exploded, “it glowed 30 times brighter than the sun, causing skin and retinal burns to humans on the ground”.

“In terms of hitting earth, we are very fortunate that in the current era of time, we have tremendous calmness, where most of the debris has either thrown out or eaten by other planets.”