Do you think an asteroid will hit our planet one day and that will be the end our planet? You may not be too wrong as there are a number of ‘dangerous’ asteroids in space that are hovering near the Earth. Lately, an image published by NASA shows that how our planet is literally the eye of the storm, amidst all the nearby asteroids.
NASA keeps track of all such Potentially Hazardous Objects (PHOs) which are surrounding the neighboring space to our planet. Usually, the agency deems any body as a PHO if it is closer than 4.6 million miles from Earth and larger than about 350 feet in diameter.
It’s amazing to note in the above picture just how many objects NASA keeps tracks of. In that picture, there are literally many asteroids which can potentially hit the Earth. Not all of them may present a Dooms-Day scenario since many are fairly small in size and may result in a Tsunami if they hit our oceans, or significant local damage if they hit somewhere on land.
Currently, there are some 1,397 such asteroids which are classified by NASA as PHOs. The image posted above shows the orbit of these asteroids, showing how some of them orbit really close to our planet.
Courtesy: PopSci
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Great visualization!
And not surprise that Earth’s field of gravity would make it a rat-catcher of asteroids, forcing them into a great variety of unstable orbits.