‘City-Killer’ Asteroid came very close to Earth, scientists couldn’t notice it

Asteroid 2019 OK, which has been dubbed as 'city killer' came very close to the Earth at a speed of 15 miles per second before flying past. Scientists had completely missed the asteroid as it flew past Earth.

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Asteroid 2019 OK, which scientists have dubbed as a ‘city killer’ came very close to Earth last week, before flying past. (Image source: Getty Images)

Asteroid 2019 OK, which has been dubbed as ‘city killer’ came very close to Earth last week, flying at a speed of nearly 15 miles per second before it went past the planet. The asteroid was in fact closer to Earth than the Moon at a distance of nearly 45,000 miles, according to a report in The Washington Post. Scientists completely missed Asteroid 2019 OK, as it flew really close to Earth, according to several reports.

According to the report, Asteroid 2019 OK wasn’t one that scientists had been tracking. It had seemingly appeared from “out of nowhere,” is what Michael Brown, a Melbourne-based observational astronomer, told the newspaper. The impact of Asteroid 2019 OK would have been massive.

Astronomer professor Alan Duffy told the Sydney Morning Herald, “”It would have hit with over 30 times the energy of the atomic blast at Hiroshima.” NASA’s own data shows Asteroid 2019 OK is around 57 to 130 meters wide (187 to 427 feet) in size and it came really close to Earth at less than one-fifth of the distance between our planet and the moon.

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On July 26, the Asteroid 2019 OK came really close to Earth. (Image source: NASA)

While asteroids do make an appearance, in 2013, the Chelyabinsk meteor had entered Earth’s atmosphere and crashed into Russia. It had left 1600 people injured, though most were indirect given that buildings were impacted by the crash. The meteor was nearly 20 meters in diameter though, and Asteroid 2019 OK is much bigger.

According to the Washington Post report, the asteroid was detected by separate astronomy teams in Brazil and the United States. Information about the size and path was only known just hours before it went past Earth.

However as the report also notes, Asteroid 2019 OK, while big is not as large as the ones that caused the dinosaurs to get wiped out. Duffy also told Washington Post that the asteroid is not an easy one to detect given it the direction from which it approached the Earth, which was from behind the sun. Reflected sunlight would have made this harder to spot, according to him.

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