23-feet wide giant asteroid to zoom past Earth today: Could it collide?

A massive asteroid, travelling at an astonishing speed of 10 times the speed of a bullet, is set to pass Earth on Tuesday, January 28.

The 23-feet wide space rock called Asteroid 2025 BS4, had been closely monitored by Nasa scientists. The asteroid, travelling at a speed of 35,000 miles per hour weighs more than 970,000 pounds.

The asteroid is set to come within 511,000 miles of Earth, approximately twice the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Though being on a safe distance, it has been classified as a near earth object (NEO). NEOs are asteroids or comets that orbit the sun and come within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit. Asteroid 2025 BS4 is just one of over 37,000 such objects tracked by Nasa.

Could it collide with earth?
In case Asteroid 2025 BS4 were to collide with Earth, it could unleash energy equivalent to 19,000 tons of TNT, enough to completely flatten a city the size of Birmingham.

Fortunately, such a scenario is out of the question for this encounter according to the Daily Star.

This latest celestial wanderer comes as scientists continue to study the risks posed by larger space rocks, including the infamous Apophis asteroid. Discovered in 2004, Apophis was initially thought to have a small chance of hitting Earth in 2029. However, further analysis ruled out any impact, predicting a close approach of 18,300 miles on 13 April 2029.

Asteroid hunter Franck Marchis told the Daily Mail that asteroids can come at any moment towards Earth and observing the sky everywhere in the world allows them to track these out of the world objects.