Huge asteroid will pass and narrowly miss Earth

A massive asteroid will soon pass near Earth but, fortunately, without causing a collision.

The 2006 QQ23 asteroid with a diameter of 570 meters, will approach Earth on August 10, according to NASA. Its course will be closer to our planet at 3am BST when it will approach at a distance of 7.4 million kilometers.

If the asteroid was to collide with Earth, the impact would be devastating. The collision would alter the planet's climate for many years. It could also exterminate an entire city or it cause huge tsunamis.

Even if the asteroid is bigger than the One World Trade Center in New York City, it is considered as a moderate-sized. In fact, there are about 900 asteroids bigger than the 2006 QQ23 in our solar system. The biggest that has been discovered is about 34 kilometers in diameter. 

However, the majority of asteroids in the solar system are smaller in size and even if some of them are moving towards Earth, the atmosphere is capable of burning most of them before they hit the ground. A meteor collision is rare but occurs once in a while. In 2013, a meteor struck in Ural Mountains, Russia, creating a shockwave that damaged local infrastructure injuring about 950 people. "It was quite extraordinary. We saw a very bright light and then there was a kind of a track, white and yellow in the sky." Polina Zolotarevskaya, a resident, stated back then.

Currently, NASA has the technological means to trace hazardous asteroids and predict their course. Moreover, if an asteroid is to struck our planet, NASA has a space plan to deflect its route avoiding a collision.