Asteroid QV89: Will the giant space rock hit Earth in September? Asteroid on ‘RISK LIST’
AN ASTEROID ranked on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) list of “risk objects” will come hurtling past the planet in early September – but is there any danger of the asteroid hitting Earth in three months?
By SEBASTIAN KETTLEY
Express.co.uk
Mon, Jun 17, 2019
Asteroid QV89 will come barreling past our home planet on the morning of September 9, 2019. Astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey first discovered the rocky object flying around the Sun in August 2006. Nearly 13 years later and the space rock has been placed on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) list of potential impactors. But does this mean the asteroid is headed on an unavoidable collision course with our home planet?
Asteroid 2006 QV89 is a 131ft-wide (40m) rock orbiting the Sun once every 474.4 days.
The space rock is comparable in size to the famous Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, or five London double-decker buses.
An asteroid this big could cause considerable damage if it struck the Earth or disintegrated in the atmosphere.
When a 65.6ft-wide (20m) exploded over Russia’s Chelyabinsk Oblast in 2013, more than 1,000 people were injured by blown out windows.
Thankfully for us, this time around, ESA has classified QV89 a “no hazard” object.
According to astronomer Eddie Irizarry of the Astronomical Society of the Caribbean, the asteroid is not a danger and not a priority for observations for ESA.
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