NASA :An asteroid twice the size of the Empire State will visit Earth January 18

NASA has warned that a massive asteroid more than twice the size of the Empire State Building in New York will reach 1.2 million miles from Earth next month.

The Daily Mail reported that NASA indicated that the asteroid, called 7482 (1994 PC1), does not pose any threat to Earth because it will be five times farther from the planet than the Moon, as it cruises at a speed of 43,000 miles per hour.

But according to the agency's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, it is a "potentially dangerous object" as it crosses Earth's orbit as it travels around the sun.

The diameter of the rock is 3,280 feet, and after its approach to Earth on January 18, 2022, it will not return again until the year 2105.

Viewers will not be able to see the comet, which will only be seen with powerful telescopes, which Australian scientists first spotted in 1994.

It orbits the sun every 572 days, and its last known approach was in 1933, when it was 699,000 miles from Earth.

This rocky asteroid provides an opportunity for astronomers to study its surface and learn more about it.

NASA and other space agencies regularly track more than 28,000 known asteroids as they orbit the Sun, and sometimes even through Earth's orbit.

The US agency says that it is not expected that any of the known asteroids will collide with Earth at any time in the near future, but there are asteroids whose orbits are unknown.

In an effort to counter the threat of asteroids that may one day come a little closer to Earth, NASA has formed a Planetary Defense Program, which includes the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which was launched last month.

For more exclusive news and useful articles, follow us on news.egy4ever.com