Earth plays host to weekend asteroid visitors

Planet Earth played the role of a host with an asteroid as big as a city block shot close relatively to the earthâ€™s orbit on Saturday, which is the latest in a series of visiting celestial objects that included an asteroid the size of bus that exploded over Russia injuring over 1500 people. The newly discovered asteroid is named Asteroid 2013 ET is nearly eight times larger than the previous asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk- Russia as on February 15. The size of this asteroid is estimated to be around 100 meters (64mtrs by140mtrs).

The most interesting part of this asteroid is that it is unknown and is about two and half times as far as the moon, which is quite close on a cosmic yardstick. The asteroid moving at a speed of about 2600 miles per hour could have wiped out a large city if it had hit the earth as per the views of Slooh telescope engineer Paul Cox. Previously, the asteroid that hit the Russian part of Chelyabinsk has force of explosion equivalent of about 440 kilotons of dynamite that created shock waves shattering windows and damaged buildings.

On the same day of February 15, another small asteroid known as DA14 passed about 17,200 miles from Earth that is closer than the orbiting networks of weather and communication satellites. Two other small asteroids both about the size of the Russian meteor will also be on Earthsâ€™ orbit this weekend. The asteroid 2013 EC had passed the earthâ€™s orbit just 93,000 miles away this Saturday, which is just stoneâ€™s throw of our earthâ€™s atmosphere. Scientists assume that undetected objects can strike Earth without warning like the surprise meteor explosion over Russia last month creating a sense of insecurity for our planet earth.

NASA has been briefed by the U.S. Congress to find and track all near Earth objects of about 0.6 miles or larger in diameter and estimates of about 95% has been identified. Nevertheless, only 10% of smaller asteroids have been discovered as per the scientists of NASA. It is estimated that about one hundred tons of material from space hits our planet Earth everyday and astronomers predicting that asteroids the size that hit Russia may strike the planet about every one hundred years.

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