Washington: The US space agency NASA has confirmed that an asteroid, known as 1999 FN53, will safely pass more than 26 times the distance of Earth to the moon on Thursday, May 14, 2015.
According to NASA, 1999 FN53, which is approximately 3,000 feet (1 kilometer) across, will get no closer than 6.3 million miles away (10 million kilometers) and poses no threat to the Earth.
Asteroid 1999 FN53 will safely pass Earth May 14 by over 6 million miles. It poses no threat: http://t.co/eE8RF5X5vy pic.twitter.com/y7Z33nsltD
— NASA (@NASA) May 14, 2015
It said that the asteroid will not get closer than that for well over 100 years.
“This is a flyby in the loosest sense of the term,” Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, was quoted as saying.
“We can compute the motion of this asteroid for the next 3,000 years and it will never be a threat to Earth. This is a relatively unremarkable asteroid, and its distant flyby of Earth tomorrow is equally unremarkable,” he added.
The asteroid 1999 FN53, which was first discovered in March 1999, is the largest object currently being tracked on NASA's Near Earth Object radar.
Earlier, there were reports that the impact of the asteroid, if it were to hit the Earth, would be catastrophic leading to the deaths of around 1.5 billion people.
But, fear not, for the asteroid will pass by safely and at a farther distance than most Near Earth Objects.
Further, NASA added that 1999 FN53 will be so far away even then (119 years from now) and will not affect our planet in any way, shape or form.
