Asteroid as big as Burj Khalifa to fly by earth at 56,000mph on November 29

Representational Image

NEW DELHI: Just a few days before the year 2020 ends, December will be witnessing a flyby of a massive asteroid. An asteroid, said to be 0.51 kilometres in diameter and as tall as the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa of Dubai, is set to pass within 4,302,775 km of Earth.

NASA has confirmed that the asteroid named 153201 2000 WO107, will barrel past Earth on Sunday, November 29 and is currently speeding though space at a whopping 56,000mph. It’s terrifyingly huge as its size ranges anywhere between 12,00ft to 2,5700ft across (370m and 820m).

It is set to make its close approach at 1:08 a.m. on Sunday.

Burj Khalifa is the tallest man-made structure in the world and stands at an astonishing height of 2,720 feet (829 m), according to The Measure of Things. 2000 WO107's diameter is an intimidating 2,690 feet (820 m).

As per spacereference.org, has been classified as a Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) as it will come within 1.3 astronomical miles of Earth, in addition to being dubbed as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid. Notably, scientists in New Mexico had discovered this asteroid on November 29, 2000, and they have been tracking it ever since.

Given the huge size and length of the asteroid, there are of course, reasons to worry. If this particular asteroid ends up entering the Earth’s atmosphere and making an impact, the results would no doubt be catastrophic. However, thankfully, NASA has said that that there’s zero chance of the asteroid actually hitting our planet, as it’s classed as an NEA.

As per NASA, asteroids are ‘rocky, airless remnants left over from the early formation of our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago’ and states that there’s approximately 1,031,488 of them to date.