Asteroid JPL warning: NASA tracking HUGE asteroid to skim Earth day before Royal Wedding
PRINCE Harry’s and Meghan Markle’s fairytale royal wedding looks to be in for a surprise after space agency NASA warned of a monstrous asteroid barrelling towards Earth the day before the nuptials.
NASA reveal new method of spotting dangerous asteroids
Hours before Harry and Meghan tie the knot at Windsor, a giant asteroid will skim past Earth on Friday May 18, NASA has revealed.
The football field-sized asteroid, dubbed JPL 8, is expected to whizz past the planet in the early morning hours at around 2.21am.
JPL 8 is estimated to be anywhere between 49 and 110m in diameter.
The speeding asteroid is heading towards our home planet at a breakneck speed of 13.9 kilometres per second or more than 30,000 miles per hour.
JPL was recently discovered in the Catalina Sky Survey in Tuscon, Arizona.
But the JPL is not the only interstellar traveller to threaten the planet in just over a week’s time because a second, bigger asteroid is being tracked by NASA.
The 68 metre-wide 2018 GL1 asteroid will zoom by on Saturday morning approaching as close as approximately 14.3 Lunar Distances from Earth – more than 5 million kilometres (3 million miles).
Thankfully none of the barrelling asteroids seem to pose any risk to the royal nuptials and the 100,000 people expected to gather outside Windsor Castle on Saturday May 19 can rest easily.
Asteroid warning: A monstrous space rock will fly past Earth before the royal wedding
By the time Harry and Meghan exchange their vows at St George’s Chapel, the space rocks will have safely cleared away from Earth.
Millions more will tune in to live television to watch the moment Harry weds his actress fiancé and the only thing that could spoil the royal wedding is the prospect of rainy weather next week.
In fact there are hundreds of asteroids which skim past the planet every year and only a handful of them pass close enough to be considered by NASA a Near Earth Object (NEO) threat.
According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NEOs are comets and asteroids that enter Earth’s “neighbourhood”.
The Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CENOS) in California tracks the paths of NEOs forwards from the year 2,200AD backwards to 1,900AD.
Every day, Earth is bombarded with more than 100 tons of dust and sand-sized particles
Asteroid 2018 GL1 is categories as a NEO but the chances of it hitting Earth are slim.
NASA said: “Every day, Earth is bombarded with more than 100 tons of dust and sand-sized particles.
“About once a year, an automobile-sized asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere, creates an impressive fireball, and burns up before reaching the surface.
“Every 2,000 years or so, a meteoroid the size of a football field hits Earth and causes significant damage to the area.
Asteroid warning: Hundreds of deep space rocks skim past the planet every year
Royal wedding: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will tie the knot on Saturday May 19
“Only once every few million years, an object large enough to threaten Earth's civilisation comes along.
“Impact craters on Earth, the moon and other planetary bodies are evidence of these occurrences.”
A grand total of 14 asteroids are expected to fly-by Earth in May alone.
The next asteroid to approach Earth is 2016 JQ5 and the space rock will dash past the planet today.