NASA has its eye on another large space rock this week.
Asteroid 2015 DR215 is a huge space rock that’s expected to make a close approach in the early hours of Friday morning.
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The asteroid has made it onto Nasa’s ‘close approach’ list and stands out as one of the largest on the table.
At up to 1,607 feet wide, the asteroid is larger than the Empire State Building.
New York’s most iconic building stands at 1,454 feet tall.
An asteroid of this size would cause some serious damage if it hit Earth.
There’s no need to panic though, Asteroid 2015 DR215 is expected to pass us at a distance of 4.1million miles.
That may sound pretty far away but in the grand scheme of space this isn’t a large distance at all.
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That’s why Nasa has still flagged it as a “close approach”.
If an asteroid comes within 4.65million miles and is over a certain size, it’s considered “potentially hazardous” by cautious space agencies.
Friday’s large asteroid fits this description.
It should shoot past from its safe distance at just under 19,000 miles per hour.
Plans to save Earth from asteroids
Some experts are worried that Earth isn’t yet ready to defend itself from potentially deadly asteroids.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk once sparked concern by tweeting: “a big rock will hit Earth eventually & we currently have no defence.”
Nasa is looking into some defence methods though.
It recently launched its Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission.
Nasa said: “DART is the first-ever mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid’s motion in space through kinetic impact.”
The DART craft should slam into a small asteroid called Dimorphos in September with the aim of moving it off course.
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In other news, experts have created a physics-based simulation video showing how a recent lunar rocket crash likely happened.
Pulverizing asteroids could be humanity’s only chance of avoiding a similar doomsday event to the dinosaurs, scientists claim.
And, we looked into what would happen if you died in space.
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