The American space agency announced that a huge asteroid brushed past the Earth on Friday August 5, 2022. The object called 2022 OE2 was only identified on July 26. It would be the size of two football pitches. According to scientists, its impact on Earth would have had the effect of a thousand nuclear bombs. According to NASA, it passed more than 5.1 million kilometers from Earth. This distance might be equivalent to 13 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
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Before 2022 OE2, other objects had also passed very close to Earth. This is, for example, 2022 NF passed just 90,000 km from the planet. As characteristics, it had a smaller size of 5.5 x 12.5 meters. For the time being, the Earth is not worried by an asteroid impact according to data from the American Space Agency.
Earth is not protected
NASA estimates that the possibility of a cataclysmic impact occurring within the next 100 years is nevertheless extremely low. We also note that for the moment, no mechanism exists to protect the planet from a disaster scenario where a massive near-Earth asteroid likely to impact the Earth was identified. The American and Chinese space agencies continue to carry out research in this direction.
