The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said Wednesday that it was keeping an eye on several asteroids moving closer to Earth in the next few days.
“According to the agency’s asteroid watch, the largest of the five currently being tracked is 1,100 feet wide, roughly the size of a stadium,” WMBF reported.
However, the massive asteroid, expected to be nearest the Earth on Saturday, was not supposed to be a threat because the closest it was predicted to come was 3.16 million miles away.
“There are three others the size of a plane and one the size of a house also making their way to earth over the next few days,” according to Fox 2 Now.
“Scientists also don’t believe there are any concerns from those asteroids either. The closest one is expected to come within 1,830,000 miles of earth later today,” the article noted.
On its website, NASA posted an Asteroid Watch Widget to track the asteroids and comets that would make relatively close approaches to our planet.
“The Widget displays the next five Earth approaches to within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers or 19.5 times the distance to the moon); an object larger than about 150 meters that can approach the Earth to within this distance is termed a potentially hazardous object,” the site read.
Although it was unlikely for an asteroid to collide with Earth in the near future, scientists from all over the world gathered at a 2019 conference to discuss how to respond to one big enough to destroy a major city, according to CBS News.
“All we have to do is change its speed a little faster or a little slower so that when it crosses Earth’s orbit, it crosses either in front of us or behind us,” stated Dr. Lori Glaze, who is the director of planetary science at NASA.
However, Glaze said she does not spend any time worrying over what might be.
“It doesn’t really keep me up at night,” she concluded.
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