An asteroid that is said to be as massive as the World Trade Center is dangerously close to the Earth's orbit, and experts say that the rock could smash the planet days before the Christmas festivities.
The asteroid is known as 216258 2006 WH1, and it is set for its closest approach to Earth on Dec. 20, just five days before Christmas. The massive space rock is said to be 540 meters and has the same size as the World Trade Centre, and it would cause a huge amount of damage and mass extinction if it hits the planet.
NASA' report on the asteroid
Experts at NASA reported that the asteroid is currently thought to be hurtling towards the planet at a speed of 43,200km/h or 26,843mph. The course of the asteroid could be further influenced by a natural phenomenon called the Yarkovsky effect.
The Yarkovsky effect is a force that is acting on a rotating body in space, which is caused by the anisotropic emission of thermal photons. These thermal photons carry momentum. It is usually considered in relation to meteoroids or small asteroids because its influence is most significant for these bodies. The influence of the Yarkovsky effect on an asteroid was demonstrated in 2012 with mastoid 1999RQ36.
By using the Yarkovsky effect, scientists were able to estimate the most accurate determination of an asteroid's orbit. Asteroids that are larger than 35 meters pose a threat to a town or a city. This means that 216258 2006 WH1's 540-meter diameter would cause havoc across the globe.
The asteroid has not yet been measured in the Torio Impact Hazard Scale, but it will likely be listed as a serious threat when and if it is added. A stripped-down version of the Torino Scale was shown to the United Nations in 1995. Then a revised version was shown in 1999 at a conference on Near-Earth Objects or NEO.
It was at the NEO conference that participants voted to make the revised version as the main scale that scientists would use and refer to when labeling the threat that asteroids posed to Earth.
How asteroids are measured in space
The system has an integer scale ranging from 0 to 10 with associated color coding. It currently captures the consequences and the likelihood of a potential impact event. A ten on the integer scale means a collision is certain; it is capable of causing a global climatic catastrophe that may threaten the future of civilization, whether a collision with ocean or land.
Such events happen on average once per 100,00 years or less often. A one on the integer scale corresponds to a routine and a normal discovery. This normal discovery only came in 2005, when one of the integer scales meant that the events merit careful monitoring. This normal discovery resulted in exaggerated press coverage all over the world as scale one asteroids were common, so the terminology for scale one asteroids had to be changed to "normal" to avoid mass panic and attention.
For these asteroids, the calculations show the chance of collision is very unlikely with no cause for concern or public attention. New telescopic observations likely will lead to re-assignment for those originally classes as level one to eventually become a level zero on the scale.
Organizations like ESA or the European Space Agency and NASA keep a watchful eye on NEOs passing close to Earth. NEOs are all asteroids and comets whose orbits approach Earth's path around the Sun.
NASA stated that NEO includes any meteoroid, asteroid, or comet orbiting the Sun within 18,600,000 miles or 30 million km of Earth's orbit. Out of the 829,361 known asteroids and 3,592 known comets in the system, more than 20,000 space rocks are ranked as NEOs.
