On August 22, a large asteroid that is 92 feet broad or less will come quite close to Earth, according to NASA. The US agency observed numerous space rocks heading towards Earth, but none of them struck the planet.
Indian media house Hindustan Times states that the Asteroid 2020 QW3 will fly past Earth on August 22 at 06:41am at a distance of 3.3 million kilometres, at a staggering speed of 64.800 kilometres per hour. Although NASA has stated that this asteroid will not pose any viable threat to Earth, it was still classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid due to the close proximity of its encounter with Earth.
According to Sky.org, Asteroid 2020 QW3 is at a maximum distance of 321 million kilometers from the Sun. On the other hand, its distance from the Earth is just 8.96 million kilometers, equivalent to 0.06 astronomical units. An astronomical unit (AU, or au) is basically a unit of length equal to the average, or mean, distance between Earth and the Sun, that is, 149,597,870.7 km (92,955,807.3 miles).
Asteroid 2020 QW3 is different from previous asteroids that have flown past Earth recently as it does not belong to the Apollo group of asteroids but the Amor group. The asteroid orbits around the Sun, taking almost 732 days to complete 1 orbit. Earth witnessed four asteroids pass by safely without colliding with the planet.
